Dear Internet,
Recently I’ve taken up the hobby of coloring. TEH teases me if I would like apple sauce and juice for a snack. Hah. (I should also mention I’ve taken to sleeping with my teddy bear every night; apparently I’m regressing into childhood.) No matter! I’m finding coloring not only relaxing but also cheap. By printing off a few sheets from the Internet and using my already existing pencils, I can spend hours in front of the TV coloring. And! iIt’s also fun and has a low barrier for entry.
Here are some tips:
♥Finding and printing from the Internet is easy. (I’ve started a board on Pinterest to keep track of the ones I like. I can add people if they are interested in contributing.)
♥Make sure when printing you do not print them as a PDF but as an image (easier to control how it is printed). Also, make you have selected “fit one page” (or variant) so there is no cut off in the design. To showcase my work, I print at 600dpi and save as a PNG to prevent compression. I resize in Photoshop and adjust the color since some brightness is lost.
♥I use Derwent Watercolor Pencils, which I had laying around. As I only have a 12 pack and some random pencils from another set which duplicate some of my Derwents, my palate is quite small. I recently obtained the Ohuhu® 48-color set but you are not obligated to use water color pencils or even pencils. You can use paints, markers, crayons, whatever. What makes this hobby so great is that you have most of the tools already at home.
♥I found I really like coloring in manadals and any design that is balanced. So I got a coloring book, Balance (Angie’s Extreme Stress Menders Volume 1), which will give me sharp and crisp outlines.
Crowd sourced tips:
♥Get an electrical sharpener.
♥Get a clipboard.
Below are three of my pièce de résistances:
xoxo,
Lisa
coloring for adults
