Catholics are the original lovers of color — from stained glass windows to illuminated manuscripts, we’re way ahead of the curve. Now that coloring books for adults have become all the rage, let’s take a look at the products aimed specifically at Catholics of all ages. Here are a few that caught my eye:
BOOKS TO BUY
The artist Matthew Alderman has two new coloring books out: Feasts of Our Lord and Our Lady and A Feast of Saints.
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These are printed only on one side. Alderman’s style is graceful and ornate, in the heraldic style. There are 23 pages of original art in each book.
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The amazing Daniel Mitsui has an adult coloring book of The Mysteries of the Rosary available for pre-order. It will be released in July.
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Mitsui’s original art is intricate and meticulous, with influences of medieval illuminated art and Japanese art.
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Sense of the Sacred: A Coloring Book for Young Illuminators by Dominic de Souza also comes with an illuminated companion prayer book.
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A second coloring book from Gracewatch Media, Living Sparks of God: Stories of Saints for Young Catholics to Color, will be out in less than two weeks.
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Holy Heroes offers offers four coloring books in cartoon style about the life of Jesus,
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as well as downloads for coloring pages of John Paul II, St. Therese, and more.
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Good old Dover publishes an endless variety of coloring books, including Women of the Bible, Bible Stories, The Sistine Chapel, Noah’s Ark, and Popes.
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They also make lovely stained glass mini and full-sized coloring books, which are printed on translucent paper. You can color on both sides, and then tear out the pages and display in them in the window, and they will shine like real stained glass. There are hundreds of secular titles, and also Psalms, Old Testament Scenes, Noah’s Ark, Angels, Nativity, Saints, The Life of Jesus, The Miracles of Jesus, and probably tons more that I haven’t found yet.
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There are also a good many Catholic coloring pages that you can print out, either for free or for a small fee.
FREE PRINTABLES
Catholic Viral shares 12 free printable coloring pages based on fine art — good stuff by Dominic de Souza, who does the pages for GraceWatch Media (see above).
Waltzing Matilda offers an astonishing array of free printable Catholic coloring pages of all kinds.
CatholicMom.com offers free printables (coloring pages and other activities). The quality of the art is not stupendous, but they are helpfully pegged to the weekly Mass readings.
Nancy of Do Small Things With Love offers 26 free Catholic coloring pages, one for each letter of the alphabet.
Paper Dali has a wide assortment of free printables with text, including some of my man Miguel Pro.
From St. John the Baptist in Front Royal, VA, a large assortment of printable coloring pages. Some of these are pretty basic, some are quite nice:
Pope Francis
Rosary
Stations of the Cross
Apostles’ Creed (English/Spanish)
Our Blessed Mother(English/Spanish)
Saints, Blesseds, and Clergy
Life of St. Patrick
Brown Scapular
All Other Free Catholic Coloring Pages
Stations of the Cross Coloring Booklet and Devotional for Children
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PRINTABLES FOR A FEE
The artist (and father) Daniel Mitsui asks a donation in return for printing his extraordinary hand-drawn images. (See also his upcoming book for sale, above.)
DoveTail Ink has an assortment of religious printables, reminiscent of zentangles, for a few dollars each at her Etsy shop.
For the Orthodox: a series of beautiful printables based on icons via Scribd. Scribd may charge a monthly fee for accessing downloads.
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What am I missing? If you know of a coloring book or coloring pages for sale or for download, please leave a link in the comments!
