When I was a kid, I used to attend
birthday parties. And when parties are held at famous fast food chains
like McDonalds and Jollibee I would always look for the paper mat with
drawings and I’ll bring out my own set of crayons to color them.
Children always enjoy coloring, who didn’t?
Nowadays, we somewhat associate crayons,
colored pens and colored pencils to children. Fountain Pens, sign pens
and ball point pens are for the adults. But who would have thought that
adults’ once set aside hobby would be awaken with the surprising trend
of Coloring Books for Adults.
Coloring Books for Adults is becoming a
hit nowadays for being the stress relievers of busy and working adults.
International book author and illustrators’ books became instant best
sellers like Johanna Bastfords’ Secret Garden and Lacy Mucklow and
Angela Porter’s Color Me Happy.
DEFINING ART THERAPY
We all know that Art Therapy is the use of art materials and the creative mind of the person to work on an artwork to express their feelings and emotions guided by a credited art therapist. And those who benefit in art therapy are people who needs it such as people having developmental, medical, social and psychological impairment [citation]. But, according to American Art Therapy Association, while they support the increasing adults who are unleashing their creativity using coloring books, it should not be mistaken to the professional art therapy services. AATA enumerated the benefits of coloring books as:
- can reduce stress
- can externalize focus and;
- can redirect per-occupied minds
I have my own Creative Minds Coloring Book for Adults. I got it as part of my press kit from my recently attended event-Preciously Precious [blog post here]. Yes, it is free. When I got home, I browsed all the pages and that’s the time I got hooked with it. Creative Minds is published by Precious Pages which you can buy for only 149.75 pesos. It has different templates like Mandalas, animals, florals and other patterns. Before, I used to see colored Mandalas art posted on Facebook. As I search the web what is that trend all about, I then knew that it is a smartphone application with Mandala templates that you can color, that’s when I learned as well that the app is based on the easy flying off the shelves coloring books for adults.
For me, coloring the beautiful patterns is really stress-relieving. It has also made me get away from my dependence on digital world. I started with the elephant with lots of details and my focus was there. I also believe that it has used lots of my creativity on selecting different shades. I was relaxed and became like a child happily coloring my favorite cartoon characters. Don’t worry if it gets messed up, it’s okay. Just unleash your creativity and you will feel the sense of relaxation.
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| I started with this elephant with small detailed patterns. It’s not yet done in this photo. |
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