It’s only been recently that I’ve started seeing more and more news stories about how ‘adults’ are rediscovering the wonderful hobby of coloring books and how this task is being called ‘the new meditation’ as it relaxes the mind, encourages the turning off of mobile devices and creates creativity. I realized it’d been years (many many years) since I last even picked up a colored pencil and put it to paper so I delved a little more into what was being pushed towards the adult coloring book market.
Flowers, paisley prints and intertwining circles it seems is what adult color-in-ers’ are wanting.
NOT ME.
I began reminiscing of the days of my GI Joe, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Batman and even Dune coloring books getting a good work-out, so where were these types of books for people like me who wanted something to connect with to color in? eBay has these ‘vintage’ coloring books but due to their age, they cost a pretty penny. A search in local department stores proved mostly fruitless with most of the coloring books featuring Barbie fairytopia and pepper pig (I did find a pretty cool Avengers: Age of Ultron deluxe coloring book for $7) and local supermarkets have begun selling basic Marvel related coloring books featuring Thor, Iron Man and the Avengers for $2 a pop.
Extending the search even further, artists on Etsy and around the net are starting to cash in on the craze with some very cool and very unique subjects.
ILoveMel.com have released a bunch of coloring books based on pop culture and celebrities all featuring hand drawn illustrations by artist Mel Elliott. Books featuring James Franco, Taylor Swift, Kate Moss and Jamie Dornan are all available for purchase and receive the color treatment. The Thrill Murray coloring book has been around for a few years now and features Bill Murray in an array of well known characters from Lost in Translation and Ghostbusters.
TeamArt, over at Etsy, are selling some personal favorites that I’ve been stalking to buy with amazing ‘mini-books’ featuring Tina Fey, Lena Dunham, Paul Rudd, Game of Thrones and Ty Burrell all waiting to be colored in.
Getting back to that $7 Avengers book I picked up…it is true that once I picked up that red pencil to start coloring in Black Widows flowing hair, it was easy enough to disconnect, relax and loose time as I fleshed out her skin and gave her some really dark eye makeup.
The coloring-books-for-adults-craze has seen books priced upwards of $20 per book, while as I mentioned, the marvel ones I purchased ranged from $2 for basic Avengers/Guardians of the Galaxy books at the supermarket to $7 for a deluxe book at a department store. One that I am keeping my eye out for releases August 1st and is called “Creative colouring for grown ups: the classic comic colouring book” which features fantastic images from vintage comic books of the 1950s ready to color in.
The flipside to buying coloring books is to google search your interest and go from there! This is my next task!
Check out some of my work-in-progress below!
Vintage 80’s Barbie coloring page
The X-Men get the color treatment
Black Widow wears hooker eye makeup
Have you found some awesome coloring books? Share below in the comments.
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