Creativity Challenge #4

Posted on January 28, 2016 by prairiemoonquilts in Creativity Challenges

I went to my guild meeting last night, and was given the opportunity to speak a little about the things I have going on here on the ol’ blog, and I gave a plug for the Year of Cultivating Creativity challenges.

Shout out to the Hands of Friendship Quilt Guild! I hope some more of you will be joining in!

I love seeing what you all are coming up with from these challenges. Randy sent me a picture of her doodling, and she graciously said I could share it with you all here. I think it’s great, and I hope she keeps adding to it!

randydoodlejan1

I saw Sue’s photo of random words on InstaGram, and even before I read the caption or looked at who posted it, I knew exactly what it was! It made me smile. I want to ask her: “Sue, were you listening to the news when you did that?” I figured that some of you might be able to guess the songs I was listening to on the radio when I did mine! Haha!

Here we are at Challenge #4 already, and it’s the one you’ve probably all been waiting for:

Color in your coloring book!

I hope you’ll color this week, and not stop coloring. I hope you’ll get started, and just keep at it, like the doodling, or the random words thing. Add to it every so often when you want something fun to do. And just so you know, I’ll probably repeat this one again at least once during this year of challenges.

Here is the coloring book I am choosing to use:

coloringbook

I fell in love with this book at first sight months ago, bought it and brought it home, and then never started coloring in it.

I think it’s a fear of “what if I mess it up”? — but I have to get over that.

  • It’s just paper.
  • There are lots of pages.
  • I can’t possibly mess it up too badly, unless I fall into some kindergartner temper tantrum mode (which could be possible! heehee!).
  • And as My Cowboy always says, “They make more!”

I hope you do not have this fear of getting started coloring. I hope that’s just me.

This is the page I started with:

coloringpage

Here’s a bit closer view:

coloringcu

I tried Sharpies (my tool of choice), but they threatened to show through, so I switched to PrismaColor pencils, my favorite colored pencils in the entire world. I splurged years ago (when I was an art student) on a good set, and this is my second set. I have to have them on hand — I consider them a tool of the trade that I can’t live without.

Prismacolors

I also love Tombow pens, and it’s my dream to someday splurge on a full set of those (someday when I have a spare $150 — ha!). For now, I have only a few colors, and I tried those in a couple spots, and they don’t show through, so I’m using them, too.

So I encourage you to experiment with several different methods of coloring, using various utensils, and see what you like best. And I highly recommend a good pencil sharpener!

I want to say a bit more about the coloring book I chose. I looked at many, and resisted buying them, but this one I had to have. I like it because it has pages where you’re encouraged to add on to the drawing in your own way:

addonpage

I also like it because Johanna Basford‘s style is comfortable to me. If I could draw like her, I think my style would be a lot like hers, so I gravitate to that when I see it. She has several coloring books available, but I’ve resisted buying more than one so far — I have a lot of coloring to do in the one I have!

But do go visit her website — it’s very very inspiring! She makes me want to cover all my walls with Sharpie drawings!

She also has a video tutorial on coloring that you might want to watch. Interesting to see how she works with colored pencils, and I love what she says at the end — it’s what I was trying to say earlier, but she says it much better.

There are many other wonderful artists out there that also have coloring books.
Here are just a very few:

Lisa Congdon
Jamie Fingal
Millie Marotta

I’m sure you can find many more if you just look around on the internet.

One last note:
If you do not have a coloring book to use, there are lots of places online where you can download coloring pages for free. Just print them out yourself (I recommend cardstock paper for this) and set to coloring. Here are some links to get you started:

Dover Publications (suggested by reader/friend, Donna — thanks, Donna!)
Easy Peasy and Fun
Coloring Pages for Adults

And there are many more of these, too.

So . . . have fun coloring this week, and as usual, I’d love to see what you’re doing. Send me pictures, or write your own blog post and share the link!

8 responses to “Creativity Challenge #4”

  1. randy says:

    Hi, I am in my studio with a retired art teacher friend. When you sharpen the prisma’s leave them pointy end up… And I would suggest sharpening more of them So when the inspiration hits, they are ready. I am excited on this one…

  2. Sue Hook says:

    You guessed right – I was listening to the news this morning writing my words.

    I was hoping our challenge would be coloring this week. I love to color but only color with the granddaughters – it will be nice to color adult pictures.

  3. Wendy says:

    I just found your site (thanks to Lori East) and I may jump in on the creativity challenge. I love to doodle, and I just got two coloring books before Christmas. So, I’m good to go with most of the stuff. What fun!

  4. Cathy S. says:

    That’s the color book that I got… 🙂 When I told my husband I wanted a color booking he looked at me funny until I got that book. He thought it was pretty cool.

  5. Lori says:

    This past week was fun. It wasn’t hard but I could sense it changing the way I look at things. How cool is that?

  6. Karen says:

    My daughter and I had fun doodling her French and English words for the week, that she needed to learn. We are going to do that each week from now on. Maybe I can teach her some cursive writing this way and she can help me learn some French words?!
    I just got that Secret Garden coloring book too. It is beautiful, isn’t it? I had no idea they made such books.

  7. Sandra Aiken says:

    I have 5 coloring books, but not the Secret Garden one. My daughter it and loves it. I will most likely order one. I have a doodle one, cat one, butterfly one, stress coloring book one and two for adults. Coloring has always been a passion for me and I have prismacolor pencils, Crayola twistable crayons, several boxes of coloring crayons and Crayola pencils. I love your blog.

  8. Hi Shelly,
    I’ve posted my coloring pages at my blog. I love to color….this one was easy. Have a great day!

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