Stay Within The Lines

In the past year or so we have become the owners of at least three adult colouring books. One is of “The Enchanted Forest”, another is called “The Time Chamber” and the third is selected scenes from “Harry Potter”.

 

The “Enchanted Forest” is filled with highly detailed sketches of woodland scenes depicting leaves, trees, nuts, fairies, wood nymphs, small animals and although I have yet to see one, I am betting there will be a unicorn on one of the pages. I did flip through hoping for a picture that has a winter scene. My thinking is that snow would be pretty easy to draw considering the paper is white to start with and all I need draw would be the odd shadow. No such luck though. I suppose I can hope for a unicorn in a forest of birch trees.

 

“The Time Chamber” is filled with depictions of clockwork gears, lattice, plants, tea cups, hot air balloons, cutlery, keys, and measuring tapes and of course clocks. There are any number of little boys or girls (trans gender) hiding behind whatever happens to be in the picture. Some of the drawings are very Escher-esque. All in all, a pretty bunch of black and white drawings.

 

“Harry Potter” is as you might expect filled with places, magical creatures, plants, dragons and the people who populate the imagination of J.K. Rowling. This is my favourite, mainly because I haven’t looked at it and imagine that it is relatively simple. I like simple!

 

With the first adult colouring book we dug some coloured pencils from a box in the basement that the kids left when they grew out of them. Little did they know that in a short ten or fifteen years adults would be colouring again. For whatever reason, the colour of those pencils was less than satisfying. They seemed to be somewhat washed out, maybe it’s just that they are old and tired pencils whose lead has atrophied over the years. That could happen…

 

We went to Michaels to pick up some coloured pencils that would do the trick. The ones we found were Oil Color Pencils which boasted “brilliant colors”, “acid free” and “photo safe”. How could we go wrong? The drawings were still washed out like the colours of a two year old dish rag. I thought that perhaps I just wasn’t pressing hard enough or that if I could only get a large enough area filled in the colour would magically get more vibrant like the ones I picture in my mind. I didn’t do a huge area, but it was enough to tell me that the Oil Color Pencils had been a waste of money and time.

 

Back at Michaels in the art section where you have to take out a mortgage to buy a brush, we found some felt markers for between five and ten bucks each. Needless to say, we went over to the kid’s art area and picked up 24 markers for a much more reasonable price. I’m sure those expensive markers would be fantastic, but really I’m not really looking for fantastic. I will be satisfied with “cool”, “okay” or adequate. I tested out a marker or two and the colour is more like I expected.

 

Now the problem is to make time to fill in all of those lovely drawings and with any luck I will be able to stay within the lines.