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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Mindful colouring
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Anyone into this? I thought it was a bit silly at first but I've finally succumbed and bought a book of black and white patterns, dug out my old pencils, got some new pens, and am enjoying colouring them in with glorious WH Smith technicolour and bringing them to life.
It took a while to find a book I liked but actually it's a gentle sort of way of getting back into working with art materials. I think on balance working with pencils is nicer: the colours are more subtle and you can blend them and create gradients, which is far less easy with felt pens.
Also, looking at the patterns and visualizing what colour combinations would work best is quite enjoyable.
Anyone else out there for this? I know at least one person does Zentangles and colours them in (very impressively, I might add).
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
My son and I have always had regular old bunny rabbit and Mickey Mouse coloring books at home. We find it's relaxing to color while listening to music or NPR. Regular art stresses us out because of our frustrating lack of talent. When we heard about the new adult coloring books we ran right out and got some. We found them tedious, creating tension rather than easing it.
I wonder about this difference in response to the new coloring books. It reminds me of how meditation makes me want to jump and scream but running a few miles relaxes me. (Back when I could do that.)
I have a friend who spent time in rehab for drug addiction who told me they were all required to color a few times a day. That was a few years ago and those were the old fashioned children's books, they may use the adult ones now.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I bought one of those adult colouring books in a fit of enthusiasm but I haven't really used it.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
My Granddaughter loves arts and crafts, so I got her one of those books and a folder of colored pencils. She enjoys coloring while we are traveling between her home and mine.
I may have to try a page or two!
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
While looking at the colouring books for sale I noticed there was a book of Penguin book covers, with all the colours removed and just the outlines of the designs that you could colour in yourself.
It seemed like a fun idea, as I've sometimes been tempted to redesign some of the book covers I've come across, but I wasn't about to shell out for the privilege.
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
When we heard about the new adult coloring books we ran right out and got some. We found them tedious, creating tension rather than easing it.
Some of them are, right enough. I like the smaller designs that you can use a variety of colours in. If there's a huge amount of blank space in a design I get bored with filling that in (some things haven't changed, I found that tedious as a child as well).
[ 07. August 2016, 11:52: Message edited by: Ariel ]
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I think you are supposed to use graded tones of colour in the large spaces, from what I have seen of people selling the books on TV (briefly, while on my way somewhere else).
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
Yes! Last year I bought myself Johanna Basford's "Secret Garden" and a box of 36 colouring pencils from WH Smith. I was never any good at art at school so it took me a while to get over the sense of my old (and one of them in particular was very old indeed!) art teachers inspecting my work over my shoulder and asking why I had used that colour next to that one, or not kept in the lines. For some months it was a real need and immensely therapeutic. I felt happy when colouring, at a time when I wasn't feeling happy about very much at all.
Inevitably for my birthday and Christmas a number of people gave me more colouring books and some I don't feel attracted to at all. I'm also colouring less since completing a very detailed double-page spread in the "Enchanted Forest" book which was rather an overdose of leaf-colouring! I find it a lovely thing though - lovely to do and lovely to admire the finished article. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
Posts: 1289 | Registered: May 2011
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
A little different, but when I was substitute teaching, I taught a class of sixth graders (11 and 12 yr olds) who had been introduced to cross-stitching. They loved it! They'd finish their work and stitch away. The teacher had even gotten the more enthused more complex kits when the simple rainbow ones were finished.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I used to use Altair patterns in school for colouring in at end of term - it was interesting that some went for picking out the pattern repeats, while others would look and see shapes like houses and trees in them. (This was 8 to 9 years old.)
And I used to like drawing mazes on squared paper, and colouring in two colours.
[ 07. August 2016, 16:03: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
About six or seven years ago our Wednesday evening Lenten Program was on Celtic Christianity. The priest who was leading it gave us coloring sheets of Celtic symbols each week to take home and color as an aid to meditation.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
But beware those godless mandala coloring books! They will lead you astray according to some Christian message boards. Coloring mandalas are up there with doing yoga in their books.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
What about colouring a rose window, then?
Or the Cosmati pavement in Westminster Abbey.
They look a bit mandala-like to me.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Those things are "Catholic" not "Christian". Just about as bad. ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
It does seem a pity that after taking Jesus into their hearts they are so afraid.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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teddybear
Shipmate
# 7842
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Those things are "Catholic" not "Christian". Just about as bad.
Worse, because Catholics have convinced some people that they are Christian!!! ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
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My cooking blog: http://inthekitchenwithdon.blogspot.com/
Posts: 480 | From: Topeka, Kansas USA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
We're in a sort of limbo at the moment (living in a rented flat until our house is sold) and have no TV or computer there. We were in a bookshop just after we arrived and I saw books of mandalas* and thought, I'd rather like to give that a go, so I bought a book called Colour me Fearless and some micro-tip felt pens and got stuck in. It occurred to me that I might start a thread about it here, but I didn't get round to it, and lo and behold, Ariel saves me the trouble.
Serendipity, eh?
I should add that when I was at school I hated art classes with a passion normally reserved for Hitler, and realised from the very first lesson that I was going to be completely rubbish at it.
However, I'm finding colouring really rather therapeutic; this book doesn't just have mandalas, but there are less abstract pictures as well, which I haven't tackled yet as I think coloured pencils will work better than pens, so I'll have to go shopping again.
* sorry about that LR!
Now I think about it, the idea first came to me when a FB friend (who's a bishop) posted a picture of a beautiful mandala that he'd coloured. If it's good enough for a bishop, it's good enough for me.
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Heaven knows, I'm not averse to engaging with predetermined patterning (given the amount of candy crushing I do). But I think I would feel guilty in this instance that I was not spending the time on actual drawing or painting.
Though it comes to mind that I have a book of colour-in bhodhisattvas I got at the Tibetan monastery in the Borders many years ago - so it's not a new thing.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I feel a bit guilty that I'm not spending the time actually making the effort to draw but at least I'm picking up a pencil after months of not doing so.
I'm hoping it will prompt me into wanting to create my own designs - it occurred to me maybe I could also generate some Spirograph patterns with that for illustration. (And then produce artworks of marvellous and stunning complexity and beauty which the world would fall over itself to buy, right.)
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Graven Image
Shipmate
# 8755
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Posted
I tried it, but I did not like it. I wanted to color way outside the lines. The good thing was it inspired me to once again start doing my own art.
Posts: 2641 | From: Third planet from the sun. USA | Registered: Nov 2004
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
I have always loved maps and islands, so I draw maps of imaginary islands. You can do roadmaps with a couple of ballpoints or physical maps with watercolour pencils and so on. It's your map so if you want to write "Here be dragons" it is up to you.
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I have always loved maps and islands, so I draw maps of imaginary islands. You can do roadmaps with a couple of ballpoints or physical maps with watercolour pencils and so on. It's your map so if you want to write "Here be dragons" it is up to you.
I've done that - with a little galleon and a spouting whale in the sea. (Every map needs this sort of thing.) The cherub blowing the gale from the corner was no good though.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze (and similar thoughts from Ariel and BL):
... I would feel guilty in this instance that I was not spending the time on actual drawing or painting ...
Don't feel guilty, ladies. Just because someone else has created the outline doesn't detract from your creativity in providing the insides.
As I said in my previous post, I have no artistic skills whatsoever, and IMHO colouring something that someone else has created specifically for that purpose has its own sort of creativity.
I did a sort of fleur-de-lis design this afternoon, and decided it would be in rainbow colours. No reason - just because I like them.
The last time I made anything so pretty it was a paella. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by To The Pain:
I've occasionally wrapped gifts in OS colouring-in maps. You can have a lot of fun deliberately colour-coding things, or just see what patterns appear when you stop thinking about Durham as being Durham.
Thank you for this. I've printed out a map of London. The Thames is now embellished with a little spouting whale and a tiny galleon, a palm tree has appeared somewhere south of the river near Vauxhall, and I'm working on a little stagecoach to brighten up one of the major railway stations. I probably won't colour the map itself, but illustrating it with tiny sketches in the larger spaces is proving quite entertaining so far.
I bought some coloured pencils yesterday in town in rather a hurry so as to have a set at the office for lunchtimes, but realized after I'd bought them that they don't have any red, just pink and quite dark pink. Ah well.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Firenze: quote:
Heaven knows, I'm not averse to engaging with predetermined patterning (given the amount of candy crushing I do). But I think I would feel guilty in this instance that I was not spending the time on actual drawing or painting.
Should a musician feel guilty for playing music she hadn't written?
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
Firenze: quote:
Heaven knows, I'm not averse to engaging with predetermined patterning (given the amount of candy crushing I do). But I think I would feel guilty in this instance that I was not spending the time on actual drawing or painting.
Should a musician feel guilty for playing music she hadn't written?
Taking black marks on a piece of paper and translating them into beautiful sound involves an important skill - technical mastery of an instrument. That's the bit that colouring ready mades skips. It's a kind of art karaoke.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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cornflower
Shipmate
# 13349
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
My son and I have always had regular old bunny rabbit and Mickey Mouse coloring books at home. We find it's relaxing to color while listening to music or NPR. Regular art stresses us out because of our frustrating lack of talent. When we heard about the new adult coloring books we ran right out and got some. We found them tedious, creating tension rather than easing it.
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I wouldn't worry about any (perceived) lack of talent. I enjoy sketching and painting and I'm not talented. But I do find it really relaxing (in fact my friend and I even experimented with painting to music, so different kinds of music would produce different sorts of lines or colours even.) Anyhow, in view of the fact that I'm not some brilliant artist, I just call it my 'dab and daub' method...it's just nice making marks on the paper, hardboard, canvas or whatever and experimenting..and sometimes it might come out not too bad.
Just look at little childrens' pictures...they're so free and can be quite lively and amazing.
Come to think about it, one day my friend and I got some recently used teabags, made some pencil pictures and kind of coloured them in using the teabags...it was quite effective. It's amazing what one can experiment with.
Posts: 111 | From: uk | Registered: Jan 2008
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
I've been thinking about what Lyda Rose said about some people at the extreme ends of Christianity regarding mandalas as somehow evil, and it made me wonder why. I mean, how can something beautiful (even something "man-made") be evil?
I don't mean to get Purgatorial or Hellish - I'm just curious.
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
This is just my theory, for what it's worth, but I believe these are people who are deathly afraid of being under the control or influence of unseen evil, and being uneducated and poorly catechized, they therefore regard all "altered states" of consciousness as dangerous. This would include meditation etc. but also things as seemingly ordinary as being lost in art or music. The fact that certain kinds of art, like rose windows, can be semi-hypnotic--well, that would feel pretty scary to them. And the more beautiful the pattern, the scarier the felt loss of self-control. (I rather doubt they approve of fugues either, even by Bach.)
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
Also, a mandala is from another, non-Christian religion, so it's scarier. Obviously those Buddhists are out to brainwash you once they have you in a trance.
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Ugh.
Children's drawing development is a kind of geeky interest of mine, and in my readings of said subject, I learned simple mandalas are pretty much one of the first types of pre- representational drawing children do all over the world, whether they do it with fingerpaint or a stick in dirt. A decorative mandala is merely an elaboration of a simple mandala, which is a circle divided into even quadrants. And then dividing the quadrants, etc.
It is instinctive, artistic geometrical reasoning. Figures some people would find it terrifying.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
Thank you for the enlightenment.
Now that you put it like that, Kelly, I'm beginning to recall when I was in primary school and we'd been taught how to draw a circle with a pair of compasses. If you stuck the compasses on the circumference and measured them to the centre, you could divide the circle into "petals" like a flower, and I used to love making different coloured patterns, and some of the mandalas I've been colouring are, as you say, really just an elaboration of that.
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Piglet:
Thank you for the enlightenment.
Now that you put it like that, Kelly, I'm beginning to recall when I was in primary school and we'd been taught how to draw a circle with a pair of compasses. If you stuck the compasses on the circumference and measured them to the centre, you could divide the circle into "petals" like a flower, and I used to love making different coloured patterns, and some of the mandalas I've been colouring are, as you say, really just an elaboration of that.
I loved doing that! I made many compass designs and loved coloring them in.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
It's soothing because, no matter how complex the mandala is, it is a celebration of order.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
Sometimes when I do it, it's a celebration of chaos - when I inadvertently start colouring a space in turquoise that was meant to be purple. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
I bought a packet of coloured pencils yesterday and was about three-quarters of the way through quite a pretty design when I discovered a basic design fault in pencils: the points sometimes break.
Especially if you didn't have the wit to buy a pencil-sharpener, even though there was a box of them beside the pencils in the shop ...
![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif)
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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