You may have heard of the new adult coloring book craze. These things are everywhere – taking off on Amazon and other book stores, with 12 million sold in the last year. Even J. K. Rowling is putting out a Harry Potter version.
What do they do for you? Well, allegedly they provide a form of mindfulness, or meditation, where you can clear your mind by doing one non-screen activity for a few minutes, or even an hour at a time. And you get a pretty picture at the end. Or at least, a picture.
As a kid I was a sucker for my own version of these. I took a felt-tip pen, squiggled it all around my paper like a messy knot of wool, and then painstakingly colored in the resulting spaces, trying to get each color to look pretty next to another color.
I resisted the coloring books for as long as I could, but in the end, I cracked.
Here’s part of my cover of Joanna Basford’s Secret Garden. The Scottish artist kicked the phase off, so it seemed only fair. That orange butterfly was a mistake, but it’s too late now.
My earlier attempts weren’t successful. A pack of postcard-sized coloring things just gave me a headache, and I couldn’t draw them fine enough. Let’s face it, this isn’t very good. You can be honest. I can’t hear you laughing.
But after a little while, and an equally unsuccessful paper fish colored with felt-tips, I invested in a cardboard stock ‘artists edition’ (ahem) book and started to color.
It was strangely satisfying. For one thing, you could tear out the pages when you were done. The images were big enough to take all the colors I could throw at them.
Here’s two bare examples before we get started. If you are not into lovebirds, they also have bugs for the boys. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t like to fill in just one, glittery, toxic beetle. It turns out I did enjoy the challenge. Once I selected a picture, there was the fun of ordering up colored pencils. I bought several hundred, and the process of selecting just the right shade became oddly absorbing. My first picture was a peacock.
I was irrationally pleased with the peacock and proceeded to do a few more. I found the process to be exactly as advertised, a short break from reality, when i was not looking at a screen or thinking about tech or politics. I also got a pretty picture out of it.
My husband started to complain of nests of pencils all over our house. I gave the felt-tip pens to the kids, though, in hopes I could bribe my daughter to color in a picture of her own. So far, so slow.
At least she’s careful with the birds. Color selection is an important and satisfying part of the craze. One of my pictures demanded it be illustrated almost completely with varying shades of green.
Some argue that the childish act of coloring is comforting because it is regressive. Funnily enough I didn’t feel that until I found myself sharpening my green, nubby pencils. Sharpening a pencil did indeed bring me back to the classroom.
Here’s my favorite so far, a summer hedgerow, and a close-up of the design. Most adult coloring books want you to vary shades within, say, a single animal or flower. This may held to keep the mind ‘on task’ and block out other thoughts.
So, yes, I do recommend you get yourself an adult coloring book. It’s one of the least stressful stress-reducers – no exercise classes, no meditation worries. Although you may find yourself running a bit of a pencil addiction, you will get a little sanity back in your weekends and mornings.
And did I mention the pretty pictures?
