Make Your Mark Coloring Book: Review & Giveaway

 

I am so thrilled you stopped by, because I have such a unique coloring book to share with you today!

That book is Make Your Mark: A Coloring and Mark Making Activity Book by Kate Capone, the artist behind Oh So Suite. This book goes beyond your typical filling-in-the-spaces coloring experience and aims to help you reach a higher level of self-expression. In this book, Kate invites you to collaborate with her to fill the pages with rich colors, lines, and textures, and in the process, teaches you a little bit about her exciting process of “mark-making.”

Keep scrolling to learn more about Make Your Mark, download a free page to print and color, and enter for a chance to win one of two super exciting prizes!

Scroll to the bottom of this article to enter! This giveaway will be accepting new entries until 11:59pm EST on Sunday, March 19th. Two lucky winners will be drawn at random on Monday, March 20th to receive one of the two exciting prize packages below. Enter today!

Only valid in the United States due to sweepstakes laws. No purchase necessary. Prizes are a total $220 value. Winners must respond to an email within three days to claim their prize, or a new winner will be selected.

A huge thank you to Kate from Oh So Suite for providing the review copy and prizes for this showcase/giveaway! Also, this page contains some affiliate links. That means that if you buy anything after clicking my links, at no additional cost to you, you’ll be helping support Cleverpedia. Thank you so much for your support!

Prizes

Two lucky winners will receive one of the prize packages below!

Grand Prize

One winner will be selected from all valid entries to receive the grand prize, with a $147.99 value.

• Make Your Mark: A Coloring and Mark-Making Activity Book, $12.99 value
• Sakura Gelly Roll Pens Artist Gift Set, 74 pack, $75 value
• A one-of-a-kind palette bag of your choice by Oh So Suite, $60 value

Second Prize

One winner will be selected from all entrants who subscribe to both Cleverpedia’s newsletter and Oh So Suite’s newsletter to receive the second prize, with a $72.99 value. We don’t send a lot of emails, and you’ll love getting to hear more about our giveaways and other fun products!

• Make Your Mark: A Coloring and Mark-Making Activity Book, $12.99 value
• A one-of-a-kind palette bag of your choice by Oh So Suite, $60 value

The more ways you enter, and the more friends you share this giveaway with, the greater your chance to win! View the prizes in the image above, and pin it to share with your friends on Pinterest!

About the palette bags and gel pens…

Oh So Suite’s palette bags are hand-painted, sturdy works of art perfect for toting your coloring supplies in! They measure 8″x10″ and feature a playful tassel pull made up of vintage yarn and thread (not shown). Winners may select the palette bag of their choice from the in stock options on Kate’s website.

Sakura Gelly Rolls are high quality gel ink pens perfect for coloring and mark-making! This massive set includes 74 gel pens from the Metallic, Classic, Moonlight, Stardust, and Shadow series.

Here’s the video review!

A Look Inside Make Your Mark

Make Your Mark is billed as a “coloring and mark making activity book,” and to understand that, you need to see some of Kate’s art. Here are a few lovely shots from her Instagram:

So, Make Your Mark is not your typical adult coloring book. You don’t need to stay inside the lines — in fact, you shouldn’t! It is a much more expressive kind of coloring, that gently guides you into the shoes of an artist and teaches you the strokes, before letting you loose to make all the marks you desire.

Here are some sample pages from the book (except for the third photo, these are before coloring — yes, there is some color already laid down in the book!)

Make Your Mark measures 7″x10″, a smidge smaller than many adult coloring books. There are 41 printed pages to color inside the book, though some of these are subtle textures at the back of other pages.

The book is printed through CreateSpace, so the pages are a little on the thin side, but the illustrator circumvented this by backing most of the designs with either blank page spreads or subtle patterns. If you use markers, these empty page spreads will protect the other pages in the book (though I would still recommend slipping a page or two of extra paper behind the page you are working on). If you prefer pencils, you could incorporate these subtle patterns into your own mark making.

The paper is crisp white and quite smooth. In fact, the printed designs are almost glossy. I found the paper a little on the slippery side for colored pencils, though I was able to put down color with my Caran D’Ache Pablos. It is perfect for markers, which glide easily across the page and lay color down really smoothly. Gel pen takes a little while longer to dry than I’m used to, especially if layered over top of the ink.

At the very front of the book are a color chart for testing and matching colors, and a “texture chart” for trying out new textures, which I thought was a really clever feature.

The subjects and styles of the pages vary widely, though they are all created by Kate Capone. Some pages are more abstract, collections of shapes and swaths of color and texture; others are in a more traditional coloring book style, with collections of real world objects ready to fill in.

As mentioned above, yes, there is a little bit of color already printed on many of the pages! This was really unique and not at all unwelcome — the colors offered a great starting point, and suggested a potential color palette for the page.

Download a free page to color!

How better to get a feel for a book than to download a page to color yourself? Here’s a free page that you can print and try out, courtesy of Oh So Suite and Cleverpedia. Don’t forget to tag us when you share your page on Facebook or Instagram!

This page is from Kate’s upcoming second coloring book and really gives you a feel for what it’s like to color Make Your Mark!

Click the image above to get the free page! Please note that this page is not part of Make Your Mark so if you win or buy the book you will be getting all new pages!

Want another free page? All entrants in the giveaway below will receive a second free page at the end of the giveaway!

Coloring Make Your Mark

I have to admit, this book was a little bit intimidating to get started in! So many of the pages are unlike anything you see in other coloring books; more about the texture than the spaces.

Fortunately, one of the first page spreads in the book is a print full of colorful shapes, swatches, and textures, and the opposite page is the same design in outline format. This page spread acted as a great introduction to this new style of coloring and “mark making” that I really came to enjoy as I worked through the book with my Tombow pens.

By the time I was done coloring, it felt like I had been welcomed into a sort of collaborative art project. I loved it!

Here are the pages I’ve colored so far…

Next, I went on to this fun half of a page spread of mugs:

This was more familiar coloring book territory, but I still tried to doodle between the cups. This would be a fun page to color with gel pens or fineliners!

Next, I colored this page of emotive flowers:

It was fun adding flourishes of gold on top of everything with my gold Signo Uni-ball gel pen!

Next, I colored this page with my Tombows and Pablos:

Finally, I ended on this page:

You can’t see it super well in the photo, but I added texture on top of each of the hands using a silver Signo Uni-ball gel pen.

Check out my speed coloring video below:

Overall, it was a freeing experience to color Make Your Mark. I gave myself permission to go outside the lines, and I loved the end results! I know I will be using this style of “mark making” in the future, and I can credit this gorgeous coloring book for teaching it to me.

Okay, I’m sold… how do I get a copy?

If the sample pages I showed above look appealing to you, I definitely encourage you go pick up your own copy on Amazon! You’re going to love how expressive this book invites you to be, coloring outside the lines and texturizing it all with marks and patterns.

Don’t forget to share your colored pages! On Instagram, you can use the book’s hashtag, #makeyourmarkcb, to connect with other colorists. Tag @cleverpedia in your post and I’ll share your pages on Facebook!

IT’S GIVEAWAY TIME! Enter here for a chance to win one of the two prize packages!

For this giveaway, we will be drawing one grand prize winner at random from the full pool of entries. Earn an unlimited number of additional entries when you refer your friends, for example in your favorite coloring Facebook groups!

There is also a second prize that will be drawn at random from all entrants who subscribe to both Cleverpedia and Oh So Suite’s newsletter. You must subscribe to both newsletters with a valid email address and stay subscribed for the duration of the giveaway in order to be eligible for this prize!

This giveaway will run for one week only, beginning today and ending at 11:59pm EST Sunday, March 19th. The winners will be drawn at random on Monday, March 20th, and they will have three days to respond to the winning announcement email before a new winner is drawn in their place.

Sorry, United States entrants only!

Now is the moment you’ve been waiting for! Step right up and click the options below to enter the giveaway — the more ways you enter, the greater your chance to win! Share with your friends via email, social media, and Facebook groups to earn the most possible entries, because each friend you refer using your special link will earn you an additional entry!

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Cleverpedia + Make Your Mark Giveaway

Thanks again to Kate from Oh So Suite for providing the review copy and giveaway prizes!

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