During scripting this article (August 2015), one fourth of Amazon’s top twenty best-selling books are coloring in magazines. So what is a adult coloring book, and just 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 magazines for adults. Like children’s coloring books, they are packed with outline illustrations made to be filled in with colored pencils, markers, crayons, or whatever other media you would like to use.
What’s in a adult coloring in book?
The visible difference between adults’ and kids’ color books is the grown up versions generally feature less juvenile images and fashions. Instead of superheroes, barnyard animals, and tv characters, adult coloring in magazines will be more often filled up 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 history adult coloring books called Secret Garden in 2013, featuring pages of beautifully hand-illustrated ink drawings. The newest York Times reported in March that the Korean pop star named Kim Ki-bum posted an image on Instagram of an ‘delicately colored-in floral pattern’ from Secret Garden. At 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 expansion in interest in the books reportedly has much related to adult relaxation and stress release. Many adults using the books are convinced that they discover the repetitive, low-stress nature of coloring in to be soothing, relaxing, plus a strategy for de-stressing from the pressures of life and work.
Among the other important things about adult coloring in magazines, additionally they state they enjoy recapturing the nostalgia of childhood by engaging in a task usually available to children. It will take people back to a less strenuous time, which enable it to be an easy method for parents to connect and bond using their children by sitting down to color in with them. Of course, many parents happen to be happily coloring in kids’ books for a long time, but now they have choices which aren’t tied to Dora the Explorer or SpongeBob SquarePants.
To conclude, coloring for adults seems to be an expanding past-time that allows adults to unwind and unplug from your stress inside their lives, by engaging in a hands-on activity that needs minimal commitment and maximum nostalgia.
More info about history adult coloring books go to see our new resource: look at this now
