Why adults are buying coloring books (for themselves)
CEBU, Philippines - Coloring books? They are not just for kids anymore. It is the latest "literary" craze.
That is how The Boston Globe describes adult coloring books. It is reported that coloring books for adults are flying off store shelves. The books, which are more detailed than their child-focused counterparts, are among the top sellers on bookstores and online stores.
But why are grown-ups buying a genre generally targeted for younger children? The answer seems to be that coloring between the lines can be a therapeutic exercise.
"I think it probably speaks to people's enjoyment in doing this kind of relaxing hobby or distraction from everyday life," Sarah Deaver, president of the American Art Therapy Association said. "It creates an object of focus, and it creates something that's beautiful and that's satisfying." One best-selling coloring book is subtitled "Stress Relieving Patterns," and promises to provide "hours and hours of stress relief, mindful calm, and fun, creative expression."
Trending in Cebu, too
The adult coloring books craze has reached Cebu, too. To own one, you have to make reservations at bookstores. Online sellers have also been making great business and just like the bookstores, copies are limited and reservations have to be made.
PR Officer Hannah Lood started coloring or shading as a hobby when she was a kid. "It was my Dad who taught me how to color and shade images in my books using regular pen or pencil. I doodle and color while in class," she shared. It makes her relax and forget the things going on around her. "I'm glued for two to three hours just coloring during weekdays," she added.
College instructor Queenie May Ymbong also started coloring book as her hobby as a child. When she found out about adult coloring books, she started coloring again during her free time. "I am really a frustrated artist so maybe I can unleash my inner artist with these adult coloring books. It is therapeutic for me," she said.
Student Sam Sator fell in love with coloring when she first downloaded a coloring app. "I visited a bookstore looking for children's coloring books, to my surprise I found coloring books for adults. Although pricey, I really bought one just for me to feel happy," she shared. "When I got home, I spent three hours coloring inside my room," she added.
Adult coloring books have become so popular that even "Game of Thrones" author George R.R. Martin is into it, too.
What started it all
The trend perhaps started way back 2011 when British publishing house Laurence King asked Johanna Basford, a Scottish artist and commercial illustrator specializing in hand-drawn black-and-white patterns for wine labels and perfume vials, to draw a children's coloring book. Basford suggested instead that she draw one for adults. For years, she told her publishers, her clients had loved to color in her black-and-white patterns. The publishers were convinced, and ultimately ordered an initial print run for "Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book" of 13,000 copies. Since the book's release in 2013, it has sold about two million copies worldwide. "The artwork itself is sophisticated - not like a car or a bunny with a bow in its hair."
Coloring books for adults have been around for decades, but Basford's success - combined with that of the French publisher Hachette Pratique's "Art-thérapie: 100 coloriages anti-stress," which has sold more than three and a half million copies worldwide, and Dover Publishing's "Creative Haven" line for "experienced colorists," which launched in 2012 and sold four hundred thousand copies May of this year - has helped to create a massive new industry category. "We've never seen a phenomenon like it in our thirty years of publishing. We are on our 15th reprint of some of our titles. Just can't keep them in print fast enough," Lesley O'Mara, the managing director of British publishers Michael O'Mara Books, wrote about their own adult-coloring-books catalogue.
The trend has been fuelled to some degree by social media - colorists post their elaborate creations on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, garnering fans and offering pro tips that associates with such therapeutic ends as stress and anxiety reduction.
Based on what most colorists say about the effects of their newfound love for adult coloring books, coloring a page or two a day may just keep the doctor away!
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