Matthew Sallack with Otter Illustrations is releasing his first coloring book, The WILDlife Coloring Book (Extra Wild Edition) this Friday, March 4. The book features 101 different animal prints ready for crayons, paint, prisma markers, or whatever your creative heart desires.

Sallack created a smaller version of this coloring book over the holidays last year and mostly gave them out as gifts to get a feel for how they would be received. “I was overall pretty pleased with it,” he says, “but just thought it could be more substantial.”

The soft release captured 60 different animals. “I thought that that was good, but not great,” Sallack explains. “I just felt that I could market it better to the general audience as more of an anthology, like an encyclopedia of animals, not just a coloring book.”

The local artist is inspired by lots of things, including food, animals, video games, and the community around him. Sallack says he had a blast producing all of the animal drawings in a short amount of time. “There's something to be said about creating work in a narrow window. It forces me to focus better and I usually like the end result,” Sallack says. “I'm really proud of all these individual drawings! And I felt like I was getting into a groove towards the end, solidifying a certain style for the type of aesthetic I wanted: Somewhat realistic and proportional, somewhat sketchy and loose.”

Last year, Sallack released a dinosaur alphabet book called Arrhinoceratops to Zephyrosaurus: a Dino ABC Book. After publishing the book he visited local schools and read his book to kindergarteners, pass out some dino color pages, and even got to spend some time coloring with them. “It's fun to draw with young kids; it's better than magic."

The WILDlife Coloring Book (Extra Wild Edition) includes a substantial cross-section of the animal kingdom. “I tried to think of it like a zoo and wanted to fill it up like you would with an actual zoo,” he says.” And they’re mostly all there: giraffe, elephant, rhino..and even some lesser-known animals such as a marmoset, a tapir, an okapi. “And I didn't want to leave out bugs, insects, and some invertebrates, which I mostly neglected in the first version.”

Aside from his coloring book debut, Sallack is going to be celebrating the Backyard Market’s 1-year anniversary coming up on March 13, 2016. He has been responsible for organizing all of the vendors who participate in the Backyard Market held at Eastside.

Also coming up is the Community Market’s opening day and the DIME Store’s 3-year anniversary on April 2, 2016. With such a vibrant community of makers, creators, movers and shakers we cannot wait for the upcoming market season. Local makers like Sallack will be among the many taking place in the local markets to come.

To pick up a copy of the coloring book head to the DIME Store on March 4, 2016 during the release party from 6p.m. - 9p.m. or find Sallack participating in any local market event.