This is Color in a Jar: The West, the first volume of Color in a Jar: coloring pages where every scene lives inside glass. Its full title on Amazon is Color in a Jar: The West: A 50 States Coloring Book, Nevada, California, Utah, Oregon & Idaho.
How it was made
Every page was generated with AI, using a process I spent months refining and polishing. I built the prompts with help from a tool of my own, which you can read about here: https://www.christiangehrke.com/?workshop+winter+day+propre-engine
How the sections work
Each section below is one world from the book. The companion scene runs across the top, and underneath it the page itself sits side by side, in color and in black and white. The companion scenes aren't in the book; I made them to introduce it, with the Field Notes narrators stepping into each world: GlazyArray, the brass robot, Starlee, and A.L.T.A. Marley gets a new hat in nearly every world. The colored pages were made with AI, and they're only suggestions; the colors are up to whoever is holding the pencils. What I love about this book is how much is going on: worlds within worlds, and a lot of color waiting to happen.
The oasis
A camel kneels on the sand in a striped saddle blanket, with palms around a green pool and tall dunes behind them. GlazyArray reaches out to it, Marley sits close by in a pith helmet, and A.L.T.A. leans out of the water. On the page, the oasis sits inside a jar: a pool between palms, with a camel resting beside it.
Made with AI
Fall and the squirrel
An autumn path runs under orange and gold trees, past a bench and an old lamp post, toward a stone bridge over a pond full of floating leaves. A squirrel sits on a mossy log. GlazyArray wears a scarf, Marley a bandana, and A.L.T.A. rests on the stones at the edge of the water.
Made with AI
The Beach
A striped towel and a pair of flip-flops under a rainbow umbrella, a sandcastle with a little tower, a kite up over the surf and palms along the shore. Marley wears a flower lei, and A.L.T.A. lies in the shallows where the waves come in.
Made with AI
The Jungle Scene
GlazyArray sits on a mossy branch with a toucan on her hand, Marley beside her in an explorer's hat, a sloth hanging from a vine above them and a waterfall behind. The page holds the same jungle in a clip-top jar resting on a mossy log: the toucan, the sloth, the waterfall, big monstera leaves and ferns, with tiny mushrooms growing on the log outside.
Made with AI
The Gnarled Graveyard
A full moon over an old barn and silo, cornstalks at the edges, a twisted bare tree, a headstone that says RIP and a jack-o'-lantern glowing beside it. GlazyArray carries a lantern, Marley wears a deerstalker, and A.L.T.A. watches from a dark pond with lily pads.
Made with AI
The Sunflower Scene
Sunflowers line both sides of a dirt lane behind a split-rail fence, and the sun is going down over the far end of the field with a line of birds crossing it. GlazyArray walks the lane with Marley, and A.L.T.A. reaches out from the stream that runs alongside.
Made with AI
The Peach Tree Orchard
In the companion scene, GlazyArray reaches up from a wooden ladder, a crate of peaches waits in the grass, Marley wears a ball cap, and A.L.T.A. holds up a peach from the pond. A red barn sits in the distance. The page puts the orchard in a mason jar on a porch rail: a peach tree heavy with fruit, bees around a wooden crate, and outside the glass, a red barn, a farmhouse and soft hills. There's a lot to color here, leaf by leaf.
Made with AI
The Deep Sea Scene
Down in the dark, GlazyArray wears a brass diving helmet with a lamp, and Marley a glass bubble and a captain's cap. Jellyfish drift overhead, an anglerfish hangs its little light by the coral, and A.L.T.A. swims above them all.
Made with AI
The Pirate Scene
One page is a message in a bottle lying in the sand, with a little island inside: a hammock, a campfire, a treasure chest and parrots. In the companion scene, that island comes to life. GlazyArray kneels at the open chest, Marley wears a pirate hat, parrots sit in the palms, a ship waits offshore, and A.L.T.A. watches from the shallows.
Made with AI
The Polar Scene
The last world is the coldest: the three of them on an ice floe with a polar bear, under the northern lights.
Made with AI
More in the book
There's more inside than these sections: a walled garden, a lily pond, a snowy Alpine Adventure village, a savanna, a bamboo grove, a bell jar of mushrooms and ferns, a greenhouse, and a bowl of succulents with a string of pearls spilling over the rim and a lizard on a rock.
Where to find it
Color in a Jar: The West is on Amazon, as a printed book and as a digital edition: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H1QG4NX7
Volume Two is planned, but it isn't published yet.
The jar is the frame. Every page gets a clear edge, and inside it, the whole world can be as busy as you like.
Selected works
A walled garden: a plum tree over an open iron gate, a cobbled path and a stone tower.
A round glass dish turned into a pond, with water lilies, a willow and a dragonfly on a reed.
A snowy village tagged Alpine Adventure, a savanna with a lion and a giraffe, a bamboo grove, a forest floor under a bell jar and a greenhouse dome.
A bowl of succulents with a lizard on a rock, and an oasis with a camel resting by the pool.
The message in a bottle, as clean line art, colored in, and as a full scene with a brass robot, a robot dog and a mermaid.