Before penning this article (August 2015), one fourth of Amazon’s top twenty best-selling books are coloring in gossip columns. So what is a grown-up coloring book, and the way one thing they’re currently outselling top fiction authors with new releases including E.L. James and Paula Hawkins?
Adult coloring books are, plain and simple, coloring in gossip columns for grownups. Like children’s coloring books, they’re brimming with outline illustrations designed to be filled in with colored pencils, markers, crayons, or whatever other media you wish to use.
What’s in an adult coloring in book?
The visible difference between adults’ and kids’ color books would be that the grown up versions generally feature less juvenile images and fashions. Rather than superheroes, barnyard animals, and television characters, adult coloring in gossip columns tend to be often filled up with:
aspects of all-natural world, including trees, flowers, leaves, gardens, animals and insects;
geometric designs;
psychedelic patterns;
repetitive ‘wallpaper’ type patterns;
cities and buildings;
anatomical drawings;
goddesses, angels, and mermaids;
mandalas; and
celtic designs.
There are also many ‘theme’ specific books available, featuring diverse subjects including cars, steampunk designs, and Art Nouveau patterns.
Why are they so popular?
A Scottish illustrator named Johanna Basford published a adult colouring books called Secret Garden in 2013, featuring pages of beautifully hand-illustrated ink drawings. The newest York Times reported in March that a Korean pop star named Kim Ki-bum posted a photo on Instagram of an ‘delicately colored-in floral pattern’ from Secret Garden. Back then, Ki-bum were built with a massive 1.8 million Instagram followers. The post went viral and helped to ignite the trend.
The expansion in interest in the books reportedly has much about adult relaxation and stress release. Many adults who use the books report that they obtain the repetitive, low-stress nature of coloring directly into be soothing, relaxing, along with a way of de-stressing away from the pressures of life and work.
Among the other benefits of adult coloring in gossip columns, additionally they state they enjoy recapturing the nostalgia of childhood by doing a task usually available children. It takes people back to a less complicated time, and may even be a means for parents for connecting and bond using their children to take a seat into color within them. Of course, many parents have been happily coloring in kids’ books for a long time, the good news is they have choices which aren’t tied to Dora the Explorer or SpongeBob SquarePants.
In conclusion, coloring for adults seems to be a growing past-time that allows adults to relax and unplug from the stress of their lives, by doing a hands-on activity that needs minimal commitment and maximum nostalgia.
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