During the time of scripting this article (August 2015), 25 % of Amazon’s top twenty best-selling books are coloring in gossip columns. So what is an adult coloring book, and how is it that they are currently outselling top fiction authors with new releases including E.L. James and Paula Hawkins?
Adult coloring books are, plain and simply, coloring in gossip columns for grown ups. Like children’s coloring books, they are full of outline illustrations made to be filled in with colored pencils, markers, crayons, or whatever other media you intend to use.
What’s in the adult coloring in book?
The visible difference between adults’ and kids’ color books could be that the developed versions generally feature less juvenile images and fashoins. Instead of superheroes, barnyard animals, and television characters, adult coloring in gossip columns are more often stuffed with:
elements of 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 quite popular?
A Scottish illustrator named Johanna Basford published a most popular adult coloring books called Secret Garden in 2013, featuring pages of beautifully hand-illustrated ink drawings. The modern York Times reported in March a Korean pop star named Kim Ki-bum posted a picture on Instagram of a ‘delicately colored-in floral pattern’ from Secret Garden. At the time, Ki-bum had a massive 1.8 million Instagram followers. The post went viral and helped to ignite the craze.
The development in availability of the books reportedly has much related to adult relaxation and stress release. Many adults using the books claim that they find the repetitive, low-stress nature of coloring in to be soothing, relaxing, plus a strategy for de-stressing away from the pressures of life and work.
One of the other great things about adult coloring in gossip columns, in addition they claim that they can enjoy recapturing the nostalgia of childhood by starting a task usually restricted to children. It will take people returning to a less complicated time, which enable it to even be a way for fogeys to connect and bond making use of their children by sitting down to color together with them. Naturally, many parents happen to be happily coloring in kids’ books for a long time, these days they’ve got choices that aren’t limited by Dora the Explorer or SpongeBob SquarePants.
To sum up, coloring for adults seems to be an evergrowing past-time that allows adults to chill and unplug in the stress within their lives, by starting a hands-on activity that involves minimal commitment and maximum nostalgia.
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