Do you need experience to color in adult coloring books?

Do I need to have an art background to color?

Many people who want to start coloring adult coloring books may believe that they need an art background in order to color great designs. This is not true at all! Do not be intimidated by the intricacy of the coloring pages. The truth is that anyone can color, no matter what level you are at with your artistic abilities.

Anyone can color

Whether you are an expert artist or someone who struggles to draw stick figures, you can learn to color. The only artistic skill you need is the ability to hold a colored pencil or a marker between your fingers and fill in a space. Sure you can get into a lot of advanced coloring techniques, but for most people all you need to do is color the designs. If you can fill out a ballot, if you can vote, then you can color in the lines!

You don’t need to know anything about color theory

Some of the examples of adult coloring pages may make use of color theory with complementary, split-complementary, or monochrome palettes. Color theory may be something that you want to learn about, but you don’t need to know anything about it to be able to color.

Experiment and have fun with your coloring pages. Combine different colors and see how they look. You can use anything you see in everyday life as inspiration for colors to use. Take notice of colors that you see together and how those colors look when they are paired with each other.

Here are some ideas to use for inspiration when picking colors to use for your adult coloring pages:

• The rainbow
• Opposite colors: red with green, blue with orange, or purple with yellow.
• Three in a row colors: red, orange, and yellow; orange, yellow, and green; yellow, green, and blue; green, blue, and purple; blue, purple, and red; or purple, red, and orange.
• All the same color: use different shades of the same color for an interesting and beautiful effect.

Remember, coloring is all about fun. Experiment with the colors you use and find out what makes you happy.

There are no rules for coloring

If you went to elementary school or grade school, chances are you were taught to color in the lines, even if you didn’t want to. If the thought of having to stay in neat little lines makes you twitch, then take back your creativity! It can be very therapeutic to color wherever you want, going out of the lines on purpose. It can help you convince your brain that it is ok for you not to fit into the little boxes and spaces that other people put you in. Or if it makes you happy to put things neatly in order, you may find that coloring neatly within the lines feeds your soul. However you like to color, whatever colors you like to use, coloring is for you to explore, and to play, and to have fun!

As children, we all have creativity and passion. We draw with abandon, we make up stories, we dance in the front yard, and we dream of being ballerinas, or pianists, or firefighters, or anything else that sparks our imagination. As we grow up, our dreams slowly get quieter. We learn that childhood scribbles might be cute, but adolescent drawings are subject to cruel criticism. Many of us stop dreaming and settle down into a steady job where our creativity may be stifled. Through the years, we forget that we ever used to be creative. If a friend or acquaintance is crafty, we say, “I don’t know how you think of things like that!” The fact is, we all have the ability to think of things like that, but we have forgotten how.

Adult coloring books are the perfect way to rediscover your creativity. They are fun and beautiful, and you don’t need to know anything at all about art to be able to enjoy them.

Coloring as meditation

Adult coloring books give you a chance to slow down, enjoy the process of choosing colors and filling in spaces, and let your thoughts wander while you are present in the moment. This is the real purpose of coloring: not to make a picture that is prettier than anyone else’s or to master the perfect technique. It is for you to relax, meditate, and indulge in the process.

Many people choose to set some time aside each day to color, as part of a meditative practice. Meditating every day is extremely beneficial. According to many scientific studies, meditation helps lower your blood pressure, makes you happier, decreases depression, makes your brain grow more gray matter, and can even help keep you from developing certain diseases.

However, many people find that it is not easy to quiet the mind, and they have a difficult time sitting down and meditating every day. Coloring is an effective way to bypass the anxiety and racing thoughts that pop up when you first sit down to meditate. Instead of closing your eyes and immediately starting to think of everything that you need to do and how you don’t have any time to meditate, you can sit down, pull out some colored pencils, and immerse yourself in a beautiful piece of art. Focusing on coloring does much the same thing as focusing on your breathing – it brings you into the present moment – but it does it in a way that is fun and accessible for many people, not just zen masters.

If you are ready to begin to discover all the benefits that anti stress coloring books can bring to you, buy one of our Anti Stress Coloring Books today! Or sign up on our email list and we will send you a free digital copy of one of our coloring books for you to print out at home and get started coloring right away.