How it began for me

When I let on that I had picked up an adult coloring book, there were sniggers aplenty. "Don't forget to color inside the lines," said someone.

Was that a dare? Well, I'll do more than that. I'll show them. They have no idea that professional artists have been using color pencils for ages, with some of them turning out works that look almost photographic. Have you seen drawings of glass bottles? Of clothing where the folds look so real you can reach out to feel the texture, be it nubby like wool or soft and drapey like silk?

No, we aren't talking about big, flat splashes of color, some outside the lines - the way kids do it.

The trend is now huge globally and with names such as Johanna Basford and Millie Marotta now famous, and one can't walk into a bookshop without seeing displays with 40 titles for adult coloring books alone, with the accoutrements thoughtfully stocked nearby - erasers, pencil sharpeners and... good grief, even CDs with music for you to play while you do your thing.

It's a new pastime undertaken mostly by women, and I have read of clubs springing up, gathering women to color in pages of the fine drawings by the likes of Basford and Marotta; new titles are coming up all the time, including pop-culture-themed ones like those on Benedict Cumberbatch (ew) and Harry Potter.  

Back in time,  a little before the craze took off, I was in a good bookshop, about to pay for some purchases when a book in the "Just Add Color" series and titled Folk Art caught my eye.  On a whim, I bought it, went home and dusted off my old set of 24 Faber Castells and just got started...

My first piece from the Folk Art book, and my first
 time handling my Faber Castell color pencils 
in about 25 years.  

My next one, still using my Faber Castells. 

A few months later, newspapers were writing about the craze, and pop psychologists were falling over themselves to explain why people were "regressing" to something they did when they were five.

All I know is I enjoy doing it, and the satisfaction of having a pretty picture at the end of it. I don't think this is a passing fancy for me personally, and I have set my sights on graduating to drawing and then coloring in my own work.