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When things get stressful, the stressed go shopping. For me it’s usually at my favourite art store. While wandering the aisles looking for something to help make my world stop spinning out of control, I found Johanna Basford’s Secret Garden coloring book. Yup – it’s a coloring book for adults.  Coloured pages from The Secret Garden colouring book ~~ Patricia Pinsk “colouring-in requires focus…You are completely in the moment, not ruminating about the past or worrying about the future". Up until recently, I would have rolled my eyes at the concept of coloring in such a book. THAT was something I did as a kid. Some inner voice told me I needed to buy this book, and I'm glad I did. My opinion changed when I started to color in one of Johanna’s pages. The designs are intricate, and somewhat repetitive. What results is a meditative coloring process. Within minutes I felt that I had
The thing about achieving all these three things is that it made it easier to then think about solutions to the issues I had to deal with. Articles like The new relaxation craze...state: I found this to be completely true. I also found that if I colored at night, I had a more restful sleep. Coloring, without having to think about any of the compositional elements of a drawing such as proportion, scale, or balance is very liberating. It’s a playful process where anything goes, and there is no emotional investment in creating a masterpiece. So if you are having a bad day – treat yourself to some big-kid fun. Pull out your drawing and colouring supplies and colour in between the lines.
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