
Coloring books are suddenly catching on with adults - prostoalex
http://qz.com/437793/coloring-is-now-a-normal-adult-activity/
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Someone1234
I don't see how coloring is any different from doing puzzles, playing board
games, building Lego, having waterfights (or other simulated "war" e.g. laser
tag), all of which have been popular adult pastimes for a while now...

Seems like people go through phases: Childhood (where fun is seen as normal),
teenagehood (where teenagers try to separate themselves from childhood
things), young-adults (where they discover it is "ok" to be whoever they
want), and adults who just don't give a damn anymore (although some people
still care WAY too much what other people think, see 'Keeping Up with the
Joneses' etc).

Maybe if adults would stop caring what others thought about them so much, they
could just have childhood fun without feeling ashamed or guilty. The world
would likely be a better place, with less stress, and more fun.

~~~
vbnmvbnmvbnm
I would say there's a degree of distinction between paint-by-numbers, versus
coloring with magic markers or crayons. As with any craft or skill, including
visual arts, there's opportunities for advancement.

But yeah, nothing wrong with relaxing pastimes, and aimless meandering. Not
everything has to be a mad rush toward some greater goal or executed in the
edification of some grand and auspicious endeavor.

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tomtoise
Girlfriend has pretty deep mental health issues, she got one of these for
Christmas and it works really well as a coping technique. Takes her mind off
of whatever she's obsessing about and instead she gets lost in colouring.
Highly recommended as a distraction to an overthinking brain.

~~~
DaveSapien
I make colouring(with paint) books for kids on iPad and have been giving
serious thought to make adult ones. Do you think your girlfriend would
interested in working on a digital surface?

~~~
johnchristopher
I hope you'll post a follow-up to that in a few months, I am curious about it.

My (unsubstantiated) opinion is that the contact with a physical piece of
paper (emphasis on physical) has much more impact than we think.

Personnaly I like zen doodling :).

~~~
DaveSapien
I reckon I will put something up on my blog. Its a game dev blog but my painty
endeavours have a great deal of influence on that side of my work. I would
love todo something in VR that took the best from tactile and digital.

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PetitPrince
A friend of mine said that the Anatomy Coloring Book has been quite helpful to
memorize the myriad structures that compose the human body.

~~~
yurymik
Just googled this book. Turns out Amazon also offers a Kindle version :)

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amyjess
One thing I'm surprised the article hasn't mentioned is that coloring is also
a profession, and there are people whose careers center around coloring line
art (typically using Photoshop and a Wacom tablet). They're called colorists
(and some people are now saying "color artist"), and they're core parts of a
typical comic book creative team. They get their names listed on the cover and
everything.

Some of these new coloring books for adults may actually serve a very
practical purpose: to provide practice material for potential colorists.

Speaking of comic books, some of these new coloring books for adults are put
out by Marvel Comics. What makes these books "for adults" is that they are
filled with un-colored line art from actual comics Marvel has published, and
they cherry-pick pages with high levels of detail. You color in one of those
books, you're replicating work that's been done by actual professionals. This
isn't kids' stuff at all. It honestly makes me wonder if Marvel is publishing
these books specifically as a recruiting tool for colorists.

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gedrap
The company I work for (BoredPanda) featured a post about the "Enchanted
Forest"[1] over 3 months ago, which gained the author loads of attention.
Later she sent us one of the coloring books, we still have it in the office.

A couple of months later, I saw an ad in my Facebook feed, a Lithuanian
publisher was selling it here (normally, the books and etc are published here
quite a bit later, because it's a tiny market, it was surprising). Although I
have pretty much nothing to do with the content we publish, it still felt
great knowing it helped to change someones career :)

[1] [http://www.boredpanda.com/coloring-books-for-adults-
johanna-...](http://www.boredpanda.com/coloring-books-for-adults-johanna-
basford/)

~~~
famousactress
Loads of attention is an understatement. The book was literally #1 on ALL of
Amazon books in the US for quite a while [1]. The press worked on me. I picked
one up after reading an article because a few months prior I'd found myself on
vacation continuing to color a page from my toddlers' coloring book long after
she'd went to bed and found it incredibly relaxing.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/05/colouring-
books...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/05/colouring-books-for-
adults-top-amazon-bestseller-list)

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dreamling
How in the world could that article miss out on any of Theo Nicole's amazing
coloring books, Mer World Problems, Unicorns are Jerks, Fat Ladies in
SPAAAAACE, and Dinosaurs with Jobs.

These are fun adult/everyone coloring books with great art and humor and make
amazing gifts. I've seen these sell out at conventions consistently.

[http://www.amazon.com/Theo-Nicole-
Lorenz/e/B005HHMSMY/](http://www.amazon.com/Theo-Nicole-Lorenz/e/B005HHMSMY/)

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gpvos
Suddenly? I thought this had already been going on for a year or two.

~~~
KJasper
I see them in discount stores as well, so the hype has probably passed...
(guessing that you're from the Netherlands as well)

~~~
gpvos
You guessed correctly.

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jdeisenberg
The "Anti Coloring Book" series
([http://www.susanstriker.com/anticoloring.html](http://www.susanstriker.com/anticoloring.html))
is also a clever idea.

~~~
gadders
Man, that website is like stepping back in time. I'm sure it does the job
though :-)

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VLM
Not sure if I was pleased or disappointed to discover this was not an
implementation of the "all progress comes from pr0n" meme.

Not discussed was the obvious manga / anime / comic book theme. Why the game
of thrones and abstract art themes mentioned in the article, and not coloring
manga or a book themed on anime? Maybe the copyright/licensing situation is
super weird in those fields, I can't imagine no one has ever thought of it.

~~~
anonbanker
There have been "Adult" coloring books (often with a BDSM theme) being
released for a few years now. Quite expensive, but I've had fun coloring the
pages with other people at events.

You likely won't see sexually-explicit coloring books becoming popular on
bestseller lists, due to the overall puritanical nature of the UK and the US.
I wouldn't be surprised if some more liberal countries such as Denmark or
Belgium's bestseller list reflected this.

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curl_e
"A FORTRAN Coloring Book" \- [http://www.amazon.com/FORTRAN-Coloring-Book-
Roger-Kaufman/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/FORTRAN-Coloring-Book-Roger-
Kaufman/dp/0262610264)

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marcusgarvey
...and here I was ashamed to tell anyone about my very recent addiction to
jigsaw puzzles.

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saw-lau
As a child growing up in the 70s and 80s, our family used to love colouring
these:

[http://doodleartworld.com/](http://doodleartworld.com/)

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shaurz
The next stage of infantalisation. I never thought it would get this bad!

~~~
brightsize
Another part of that trend that I've noticed of late is people calling piss
"pee" and shit "poo" or "poop". Just like you did when you were a 2-year-old
and Mommy said you had "poo poo diapers" that needed changing.

~~~
toxican
"pee" and "poop" are like the base terms for those two things. With "piss" and
"shit" being the crude terms, and "poo" or "wee" being the more childish
terms. This is the most stupid conversation I've ever had on this website.

~~~
pluma
Frankly it's more infantile that Americans insist on talking about "restrooms"
when it's clear you're not going there to have a lie-down.

~~~
toxican
I don't think anyone really associate the the "rest" in "restroom" with
resting. May as well call it infantile to call it a "bathroom" when only
children take baths.

~~~
__z
> only children take baths.

Huh?

I regularly take baths. They are very relaxing and help me de-stress. They are
also good for relieving some types of pain.

