Who would have thought that colouring-in books for adults would become so popular?!  Everywhere I go at the moment, I see colouring-in books specifically for adults.  There are pages and pages of lovely designs in black and white, ready for you to jump in with coloured pencils, paints, textas, crayons or whatever you wish and colour away as you wish.  When I first saw these books, I got just a wee bit excited because it brought back really awesome memories of me as a child, sitting at the kitchen table, colouring away in my colouring-in books, while Mum was cooking, and my sisters and brother were playing in the lounge room.

I thought I might like to buy one of these books just to bring back some of those happy memories, but something stopped me.  What do you think that was?  Well, I actually balked at the idea of someone having already done the drawing for me.  As an artist, one of the greatest pleasures of creating an artwork, is preparing the drawing first.  As you draw, you mentally work out where each line will go, what direction the drawing will take you, and if you don’t like a mark, you can rub it out and change it or leave it out altogether.  If someone has already done the drawing for you, you can only take credit for the colour you add to it which I think is the least-important part in many ways.

Many of the adult colouring-in books mention the words “art therapy” too, which I believe may be a bit misleading.  Here’s an interesting article you might like to read – Adult Colouring-In Books as Art Therapy.  What to you think?

Whilst I’m not against the colouring-in books (heck, I think they’re still a better alternative to sitting and watching TV or surfing the net all day), I think it would be even better if you got creative with a blank sketchbook, some different coloured pencils and pens, and just doodled away with whatever amazing imagination you have in that creative mind of yours.

And just quietly, I’m a bit jealous that I didn’t come up with the idea of adult colouring-in books – I could have made a small fortune! Lol.