G<\/span>rowing up doesn\u2019t mean throwing away your creativity. Remembering your childhood might conjure up the image of a night spent lying on the carpet surrounded by a slew of colorful crayons, scribbling inside and outside the lines of books full of houses, trains and animals.<\/p>\n The word \u201ccoloring\u201d might sound childish, but more and more adults are picking the activity back up and are finding it to be quite the stress reliever. These people aren\u2019t coloring in the capes of superheroes or simple box houses, though. Being an adult means you get better pictures to fill in.<\/p>\n Recently, a number of artists have started creating coloring books geared towards helping adults unwind and relax. Work, bills, maintenance, cleaning, and cooking can be stressful but coloring seems to be the latest stress reliever. Enter markers, colored pencils and crayons that don\u2019t require a great deal of thought or labor. Rather, they just need hands, a little bit of your free time and some imagination.<\/p>\n One of these artists is Johanna Basford. Drawing inspiration from her own backyard in Scotland, she has built up a world full of furry creatures and blooming flowers. Now she\u2019s asking the world to add a little color to her creations.<\/p>\n [awesome-gallery id=1499] Johanna Basford<\/p><\/p>\n Artist Johanna Basford has created two coloring books that can help adults rediscover any creativity they might have let go over the years. Her first book, Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt<\/a><\/em> has sold over one million copies worldwide. It\u2019s full of intricate, nature inspired designs that Basford has hand drawn with pen-and-ink. While it\u2019s for all ages, adults will appreciate the delicate, detailed drawings begging to be filled in.<\/p>\n Topiaries shaped like flamingos and rabbits, a page full of different sized beetles, a wishing well surrounded by twisting flora and so many more designs will take you out of this world and into your imagination. Throughout the 63 illustrations, Johanna Basford has hidden little secrets for you to find, and an index in the back of the book that tells you what to look for. Sometimes, it may be a matter of spotting a number of owls amongst a tree full of bustling leaves or something as simple as a couple of bees in flowers. Either way, each page holds a secret.\n[awesome-gallery id=1507] Johanna Basford<\/p>\nBasford\u2019s second book, Enchanted Forest: An Inky Quest & Coloring Book<\/em> maintains all the same fun puzzles and mysteries as her first with a few more fantastical elements. Dragons and castles make an appearance between the incredible nature illustrations she perfected in Secret Garden<\/em>.<\/p>\n Enchanted Forest<\/em> starts off by informing its artist that in order to fulfill his or her quest to unlock the castle and reveal a stunning image that folds out into a four page coloring enthusiast\u2019s dream. He or she will first have to find nine hidden symbols carved into tablets throughout the book. The journey to these final pages is full of mazes, treasure chests, keys and creatures. The foxes, squirrels and lions\u2019 frames are made up almost entirely of plant life. A castle perched atop a mushroom with a river flowing off the side and a boat with a sail made of leaves awaits the artist.<\/p>\n It is truly amazing to see how many shapes the environment can take. The two books are bursting with life and a promise to satisfy your inner artist with hours of entertainment. It will be difficult to walk outside without imagining trees bending into birds or abstract shapes.<\/p>\n Both Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt<\/em> and Enchanted Forest: An Inky Quest & Coloring Book<\/em> leave enough room between the vines, birds, gardens, castles and flowers for you to add your own creations. Maybe you\u2019ll take a peek outside your window and into your backyard and be just as inspired as Johanna Basford was.<\/p>\n One page in Secret Gardens<\/em> features lily pads, leaves and frogs stretching across it, but has the room and the instructions to fill in the remaining pond with your own cattails and tadpoles. Another page requests to frame a flower with bumble bees, and another has a hanging lantern in need of some fluttering moths. Surrounding almost every design are spaces to unleash your own artistic talents.<\/p>\n Perhaps the best part about the book is its potential to fill your room with art. When you\u2019re done coloring in Basford\u2019s incredible designs, why not hang up your masterpieces? Forgo the refrigerator magnets. What you\u2019ll be creating deserves a frame.<\/p>\n Johanna Basford\u2019s hand-drawn ink creations reach far beyond coloring books. Maybe you\u2019re not feeling up to spending hours coloring in the regular sized pages. Instead, you can fill in the same gardens, birds and treehouses from Secret Garden<\/em> in shrunk down size in Basford\u2019s collection of 20 postcards. Once you\u2019re done, send some letters to loved ones. You could also decide not to fill in the outlines at all and let the receivers of the letters do it themselves, inspiring and driving them to be creative, too.<\/p>\n Creativity doesn\u2019t just mean drawing or coloring. It can come in the form of writing. Keep track of your daily musings or unleash your dream story world in one of the three mini journals decorated with Basford\u2019s nature inspired illustrations. The pages inside are entirely blank, no lines in sight, so whether you\u2019re writing or doodling, you\u2019ll have all the space you\u2019ll need. Only the outside is covered in black, white and gold foiled images.<\/p>\n In addition to the postcards, Basford has also created a stationery set. It comes in a beautiful box full of black and white flowers and leaves with gold foil accents. Inside, you\u2019ll find four different sets of cards with more Secret Garden<\/em> designs, such as a golden peacock on a branch and a heart made of foliage. Even the envelopes you\u2019ll send your letters in have little hand-drawn flowers and vines to surround your stamp. The drawings are elegant in their smaller size, perfect for every kind of message.<\/p>\n And if you\u2019re not quite into the outdoor themes, plenty of options for coloring books are out there. Spiritually themed, The Journey Coloring Book<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>by Adrienne Trafford, features women making decisions. Published by Schiffer Publishing, this coloring book, filled with 46 drawings, allows the artist to delve into the deeper meaning of life and think about her choices, truth and life path. If you dig The Journey Coloring Book<\/em>, check out Trafford\u2019s art blog, which shows off her beautiful drawings in coloring books and Tarot coloring books.<\/p>\n Artist Wendy Piersall has also been busy creating adults\u2019 coloring books: Coloring Dream Mandalas<\/a>, Coloring Flower Mandalas<\/a>, <\/em>and Coloring Animal Mandalas<\/a><\/em>, published by Ulysses Press. Coloring mandalas (the circular and intricate designs) is an ancient method to help focus and meditate. In Coloring Dream Mandalas<\/em>, Piersall brings together dream catchers, geometry, angels, and creatures. If you\u2019re into gardening and the beauty of nature, lose yourself in the roses, tulips and sunflowers intertwined into mandalas presented in Coloring Flower Mandalas<\/em>. As you might have guessed, graceful creatures are the focus of Coloring Animal Mandalas<\/em>.<\/p>\n Similar to Coloring Animal Mandalas<\/em>, animals also take front stage in Animal Kingdom . . . Color Me, Draw Me<\/a><\/em>, published by Sterling Publishing, by Millie Marotta who gets her inspiration from the plants and animals she grew up alongside in rural Wales. Dive into these pages and spend hours coloring in (or outside) the lines of these detailed drawings where plants and animals seep into one being.\n[awesome-gallery id=1511] Zen Patterns and Designs. Coloring for Artists. Skyhorse Publishing.<\/p><\/p>\n Not to worry if art isn\u2019t your forte. With 12 new coloring books on the way, Skyhorse Publisher offers something for everything, including WHIMSICAL DESIGNS:<\/em> Coloring for Artists <\/em><\/a>and ART NOUVEAU: Coloring for Everyone<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n So whether it\u2019s writing, drawing, or coloring, artists like Basford, Trafford, Piersall, and Marotta have the materials to get you started on your journey into the creative world and out of the hectic, busy one in which we live.<\/p>\n Take a deep breath, forget your inhibitions, and pick up a crayon or colored pencil. Surely, there\u2019s a little time you can spare for yourself. You may just remember what it was about coloring that was so enchanting in childhood.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll probably ask yourself, why did I ever give this up?<\/p>\n The answer to how to push yourself away from the computer screen: coloring books for adults.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2015","category-fall-2015-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415"}],"version-history":[{"count":85,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2385,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions\/2385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthyaging.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}New coloring books for adults<\/h3>\n
Explore inky gardens and forests<\/h3>\n
Draw your own creations<\/h3>\n
Stunning stationery<\/h3>\n
Other coloring books for adults on the market<\/h3>\n
The strong woman\u2019s coloring book<\/h4>\n
The circular world of Mandalas<\/h4>\n
For the animal lover<\/h4>\n
New coloring books on the horizon<\/h4>\n
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