“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time”. ~Thomas Merton
For those who have never picked up a pencil or a paintbrush before, I hope you do after reading this.There are no mistakes in art, none, you are unique, free, and amazing
Article by Karen Emma Hall
Colouring in with Color
If you were not aware by now, 'colouring in' is not just for children.
'Coloring therapy', 'art therapy', 'colouring in' however you call it, is one of the newest crazes for adults to relax and soothe the soul. Adults all over the world are picking up art materials for the first time, be it a pencil, highlighter, gel pen, or the grand kids crayons and colouring in pictures from colouring books.
Why
Colouring has been shown to have so many benefits to the brain - learning, relaxation, stress relief, and neurologists say how it is recommended to their patients for better brain activity. It aids recovery of illnesses and gives us a better quality life, and can also deflect pain in some people as it is a distraction.
Would you be at all surprised to know that colours and colouring in art takes us to a more chilled place, where the brain can take time to recuperate, heal and offer us pain relief?
Stress
Your brain like a grand central spaghetti junction carries the trains with signal pulses to other parts of the body and brain. When stress jumps on board, the train speeds up, and can get jumbled up and even crash, like thoughts at high speed crashing around in your mind.
Stress lowers your pain tolerance level, and those suffering have turned to adult colouring therapy art as an alternative way to distract the brain from the pain.
The stress train slows down, and you are more in control again, and before you know it stress has jumped off way back yonder.
Improvements
Colouring is a form of expressive therapy that uses the creative process of making art to improve a person’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Anyone who is creating by colouring or sketching or painting for example, is expressing their own artistic skills and once undertaken are greatly improve with use.
Pathways in the brain then open up and tasks become easier or better controlled.
What you notice is a great improvement of hand and eye co-ordination and fine motor skills, dexterity and the ability to do that task easier and quicker!
Your co-ordination can improve and your precision. So when you have been colouring for a little time, you may see the difference between your first piece of art and your latest piece. Your latest piece may be neater or more intricate, showing you have improved your precision skills. The ability to make the pen flow better across your surface and in the place you want it.
The worlds gone colouring crazy, wooppee, we can all be a part of it.
You don’t need to be talented or an artist to receive the benefits. Never before has there been so many people picking up a coloured pencil for the first time! Yes, we are hunting out our children's/grandchildren's felt tips and pencils and crayons and using them ourselves! We have never had a better excuse to buy crayons and colouring books for the kids as we do now. Only this time, we are colouring in for OURSELVES as well.
Every week we get many who are new to colouring therapy to our group.
Colouring in with color
The colouring treatment
Counsellors, therapists, and neurologists have understood and learned how colouring books can be used in treatment and rehabilitation. The way we feel and the benefits through massage and touch can be thought of in the same way as colouring and looking at art, as scientists and therapists have discovered. Only this time with colouring you are self healing.
Let me tell you this: brain scans show blood flow increases when doing some form of art or looking at pictures, and this means that health can be greatly improved when blood gets to certain areas in the brain and pain can diminish. That is a scientific fact and that can be a bit of a healing factor in someone's disability or pain. Remember these pathways are opening not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. When these three things work in unison, we have the right formula for a happier healthier quality of life.
Build up self-esteem
If we build up a child's self -esteem by praising their newest artwork and pasting it on the door or on the fridge, why can't we do the same to our own? It is good for us and it is good for the children to see us more confident. After all we rub off a lot on them!
Boost your own self-esteem by doing the same with your colouring or art as you would with your own child.
While you are creating you are managing your behaviours and feelings, and improve your self-esteem and awareness. What a lot you are learning while relaxing and stroking colours of your choice on paper.
Counteract any negativity with positivity
Anyone who pours a little negativity on your new hobby or your current colouring book hobby has not learned or understood the vast benefits of this art and should research to understand. Once they do they will be soon colouring themselves.
Never let negativity of others bring you down especially if you are already vulnerable with one pain or another. Remember it is their negativity and it stays with them to deal with. Just distract yourself into a world of colour, and how you know it is working is when you go into another place, like a soothing balm of tranquillity, where pain is diminished or abates.
What a lot you are learning while relaxing and stroking colour of your choice on paper.
-Karen Emma Hall
Creativity can take discontent and turn it into a wonder before your eyes
-Karen Emma Hall
The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.” ~Ezra Pound
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time”. ~Thomas Merton
ABOUT OUR COLOURING IN WITH COLOR GROUP
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Colouringinwithcolor
We have not long started this colouring group and we currently have 1.3K in the group already. Everyone is enjoying the free colouring pages on offer as well as the support and advice and mainly to take time out for a moment in the day to look at all the amazing posts and photos that get posted.
Posted from people like you, who may have just started colouring, or have enjoyed it for a while now.
Some just like to observe and enjoy others photos and pictures. Some like to post their pictures, and we love to see these (your older work and your work in progress also). The more pictures the better. We also offer people who are colouring give-aways and competitions regularly, details are always available in the group. Any questions please feel free to ask and you will find me there most days, a zen place for those new to colouring all the way through to advanced, we support each other.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Colouringinwithcolor
We have had some amazing artists as members of colouring in with colour, Joanna Basford, Marjorie Sarnet, Dover publications, Steve Squidoodle Turner, Bennett Klien, Karlon Douglas, and many more I will be adding here in time.
Since starting out, a friend and admin Carolin Palmer has started designing colouring books and is soon to have her first published colouring book. (All this in less than a month of the group opening)
Leigh Emery Shearin admin and friend is a photographer and posts some of the most awesome photos of her work as a Baker and Farmer ...well all I can say is you must see them. I fell in love with them the moment I set eyes on her work and love it. Leigh's instagram photography of winterrestfarm
Tammy Atkinson is admin to the group and she is so supportive and loves to see your work and accepts many into the group. Tammy does some beautiful pictures.
Steve Conoboy is an author and admin at Kid Literature.
About Founder Karen Emma Hall
I am an author/artist, founder of the kid literature platforms above on the menu bar.
I love art and nature.
I have recently shared some FREE colouring pages with the group only and I am working on a colouring book.
I love owls and cats and they appear in my books a lot. I have an owl facebook page and an artist facebook page also. Both are on twitter and pinterest.
Pictures of selected group members work will be going up soon and I can't wait!
Please join us here to see peoples colouring for the first time, to the advanced.
See what we are doing, what give-aways are taking place, and enjoy.
Coloured by George Gordon from Colouring in with color group CIWC
Coloured by Heidi Berthiamume from CIWC group
Coloured by Eustacia Robinson Pratt from CIWC group
Coloured by Vermailene Joyce Barrios Artist Narelle Craven
Coloured by Kirsty Wright from CIWC group.
Coloured by Lynn Rose from CIWC group
Coloured by Sharron Wass from CIWC group
Coloured by Marti McArthur from CIWC group
Coloured by Kaila Karg from CIWC group
Coloured by Holy Osler from CIWC group
The first give-away prizes. (Which has now finished and the draw has been done, and prizes posted and received). Come and see some of the colouring we have done, post your own colouring, or photos of inspiration or art supplies. We love photos of your pets also. It is a very happy welcoming group and you may be inspired to colour yourself. Here we are > Colouring in with color group
Coloured by Rachelle Jo Neihardt from CIWC GROUP
Coloured by Terri Tinkel from CIWC group
Coloured by Anli Vd Merwe Engelbrecht from CIWC group
Coloured by Holy Osler from CIWC group
The first give-away prizes. (Which has now finished and the draw has been done, and prizes posted and received). Come and see some of the colouring we have done, post your own colouring, or photos of inspiration or art supplies. We love photos of your pets also. It is a very happy welcoming group and you may be inspired to colour yourself. Here we are > Colouring in with color group
