Adult coloring books: an excuse to use coloring books without being judged by your fellow adult friends. Entertainment for hours on ends filling in intricate designs with a rainbow of colors. It's been said to calm the mind and relieve stress as you are so intently focussed on the task at hand, it takes your mind off of the real world.
I like art and I like myself a challenge every now and then. These adult coloring books looked like they would be fun and I thought maybe they would help me with my anxiety. So one day while in the book section, I found myself an adult coloring book, bought a 72 color pencil set, and gave it a shot.
I came home, laid out my pencils, and got to work on the first page. I colored for about half and hour and looked at my work so far. How much of a page did I get colored in that time? A little bird in the corner. ONE little bird sitting on a leaf. The bird looked pretty cool, but it was very time-consuming and I can only imagine how long it would take to fill in the whole book!
Not only was it time-consuming, but I actually found it a bit stressful. As I am sitting there coloring, I am trying my best to stay inside the tiny lines. After all, I am an adult, how hard can that be? Every little nick outside a line made me cringe. I wanted it to be perfect. So I continued being even more careful to stay in the lines.
After about an hour of coloring, I take another look at my work. I have colored in some leaves below the bird and it's starting to look really neat, but I still don't have even half the page done. My hand started to ache from pushing too hard with my colored pencils and trying to be as precise as possible. I decide I will quit my work on the page for the day and return to it the next day.
I wake up the next day and decide to work on it to get my brain going for the day. I lay out my colored pencils and get to work. This time, it is going a bit smoother, I was starting to get the hang of it and it was more enjoyable. I think it was the stress of perfection that was getting me the first day. After about an hour and a half of work, I have finished two more birds and some leaves. About half the page is done now.
That is as far as I have gotten so far, but as a review of the adult coloring book, I think it is a fun activity to do in your free time. Using a coloring book made me feel like a kid again, but a more mature kid picking out complementary colors and creating an intricate piece of art with my refined coloring skills. It can be a bit stressful trying to make it perfect but art is what you make it and as they say, “there are no mistakes in art." If you have the time, I would definitely recommend trying them out and telling me what your experience with the adult coloring books are.
