At the time of scripting this article (August 2015), 25 % of Amazon’s top twenty best-selling books are coloring in gossip columns. So what exactly is a grown-up coloring book, and exactly how 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 grown ups. Like children’s coloring books, they’re packed with outline illustrations meant to be completed with colored pencils, markers, crayons, or whatever other media you would like to use.
What’s in the adult coloring in book?
The real difference between adults’ and kids’ color books is the developed versions generally feature less juvenile images and designs. Instead of superheroes, barnyard animals, and tv characters, adult coloring in gossip columns are more often filled with:
components of the 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 very popular?
A Scottish illustrator named Johanna Basford published a grown up colouring books called Secret Garden in 2013, featuring pages of beautifully hand-illustrated ink drawings. The New York Times reported in March that the Korean pop star named Kim Ki-bum posted a photograph on Instagram of an ‘delicately colored-in floral pattern’ from Secret Garden. During the time, Ki-bum were built with a massive 1.8 million Instagram followers. The post went viral and helped to ignite the trend.
The increase in interest in the books reportedly has much related to adult relaxation and stress release. Many adults using the books report that they discover the repetitive, low-stress nature of coloring into be soothing, relaxing, plus a way of de-stressing outside the pressures of life and work.
Among the other important things about adult coloring in gossip columns, in addition they claim to enjoy recapturing the nostalgia of childhood by doing an activity usually available to children. It takes people returning to a less strenuous time, which enable it to even be a way for parents for connecting and bond making use of their children by sitting into color along with them. Needless to say, many parents are already happily coloring in kids’ books for decades, the good news is they’ve got choices which aren’t tied to Dora the Explorer or SpongeBob SquarePants.
To conclude, coloring for adults seems to be an expanding past-time which allows adults to unwind and unplug through the stress in their lives, by doing a hands-on activity which involves minimal commitment and maximum nostalgia.
For more information about grown up colouring books see this site: read this