Do you remember the fun you had as a child when you got given a new colouring in book? I'm sure that is part of the appeal of colouring in books for adults. The other part is that colouring in can be a fun way to alleviate stress.
Image by Lou16, created on Canva |
Our state called a snap 3-day lockdown a couple of months ago and I was in a local discount store on that day looking for something when I noticed the printed stretched canvases waiting to be coloured in. The next thing you know they were in my shopping basket along with some felt tip pens.
As it happens the lockdown wasn't extended past the three days so I didn't need to have lots of things to keep me busy. The 3 days were long enough for me to find that I really enjoyed the colouring in.
As it happened a few things happened in the following week that I found very frustrating and that is when I discovered that colouring in was very calming for me. I started to spend a few minutes every day doing a little colouring in. For me, I felt it was like other's feel when practicing meditation (my mind doesn't like to quiet itself during meditation, but it does during colouring!).
I started to do a little colouring in every day and I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I can't find the exact canvases that I did online. I went back to the store where I got my two canvases and the remaining ones are clearly designed for children and I found the same lack of printed canvases for adults when I looked online.
Feeling a little frustrated that perhaps my colouring in activities was going to have to change to a book or be replaced by something else I discovered another option in an unusual place - Facebook!
As I'm sure you're aware there are groups for just about anything on Facebook and I belong to quite a few of them. One group that I belong to is dedicated to a popular store here in Australia and in this group, I came across a really cool idea.
This store sells amazing black and white printed canvases with images like koalas, kookaburras, zebras, elephants and more. One day a lady in the group showed off one of the black and white koala canvases - she had coloured in the background and added some details. It was amazing.
This thread soon exploded with a plethora of images from different people across the country who had taken these prints and added colour - sometimes colouring in the images, sometimes just the background. Basically, adult colouring in just turned into designer art pieces for the home!
Allowing a little creativity into your life is a great way of balancing out the stresses in the world while having fun and I think colouring in is a great way of doing this.
Of course, if you don't feel up to tackling an entire canvas by yourself you could always look at one of the amazing colouring books for adults that are available.