Adult coloring books topping bestseller lists

[jtuck004]

(CNN)Atop the Amazon bestselling books list this month sat an unexpected title: "Secret Garden." It wasn't Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1911 novel about a sour little girl's magical place, making a book club comeback.

It was a similarly named coloring book that adults were buying, for themselves, and it wasn't the only one in the top 10.
Johanna Basford's "Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt & Coloring Book" (now at No. 3 on Amazon) along with her second effort, "Enchanted Forest: An Inky Quest & Coloring Book" (No. 6); "Balance (Angie's Extreme Stress Menders Volume 1)" by Angie Grace (No. 9); and "The Mindfulness Colouring Book: Anti-stress Art Therapy for Busy People" by Emma Farrarons (No. 8 on Amazon UK) are selling at a rapid clip.
...

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/21/living/feat-adult-coloring-books/?iid=ob_article_organicsidebar_expansion


Tens of millions of minds needing desperately to spend some time inside the lines, where the hardest question is red or blue or green.

It's probably helpful to be led around a bit, you can rest. Unless one begins to substitute it for action or engagement. Then it's another dodge, which might not be as good as the excuses make it out to be.

[JonathanRackham]

1. Adult coloring book?

Sold in adult book stores?



What next, finger painting?

[usedtobedemgurl]

3. Actually, tthere are adult books....

not appropriate for kids. I know of several BDSM ones that could be sold in adult stores.

[Younemeen]

4. people are going crazy

I swear

[Separation]

2. I wonder if there is an audible version?

[MowCowWhoHow III]

5. Could be ASMR related/inspired

[GulfCoast66]

6. My wife does it

She is very successful and she finds it relaxing to do for a half hour or so. And the are very complicated. No way I could stay in the lines.

[jmg257]

7. Just talked to my 84 year old Pop this weekend. Can't get around much in his walker or wheelchair,

and his hands aren't what they used to be, so building doll-houses and models is too frustrating now...found out he enjoys these things.

Good for him, better then just watching movies and TV all day.

[JaneyVee]

8. They are very zen.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

9. Saw some in B&N a couple Christmasses back. Now I'm seeing them in the racks at grocery checkouts.

[BeeBee]

10. I have some of these and I color sometimes when I'm stressed.

Very zen, relaxing.

[LanternWaste]

11. Seems a most inexpensive, relaxing and benign hobby.

Seems a most inexpensive, relaxing and benign hobby.

I paint Napoleonic and Medieval miniatures to relax, and am compelled to stay within the lines as well, and am led around quite a bit by historical guides, though I imagine the color books are much less messy than my technique to relax.

[Nay]

15. It is exactly that. It induces "flow," which takes you out of your troubles and acts very

much like meditation. I enjoy it.

[Tom Kitten]

12. I used to have a job doing something similar

Out of college I worked for a needlepoint designer in his studio for a couple of years. He would give me a line drawing on canvas and my job was to paint the colors in. Sort of like paint-by-numbers, too, I suppose.

He was very successful and the canvases sold for lots of money. I and the others (there were 3 of us) were paid 40% of what the canvases were sold for (yes, piecework). It was a calm, relaxed job (of course the faster you painted the more money you would make). Still, it was a living. A large detailed piece might take a week to paint but would sell for over a thousand dollars, so you'd make $400 for a week's work. In the 80s this was a steady job and good money for someone with a BFA!

I actually found some samples of work similar to what I worked on. This was the big thousand dollar one I mentioned...



Christmas stockings were a big part of his business...



And other things...



I did learn to paint fast and keep it inside the lines!

[dembotoz]

13. guess words are just toooooooooooo hard

[Revanchist]

14. Would this fall under the scope of art therapy?

Even though there seems to be some making fun of the concept I can see the potential benefits

[Cal Carpenter]

16. Fwiw, this is from more than a year ago

They are still pretty popular but they aren't taking over the world anymore.