Coloring Books
Coloring books are no longer just for children. Bestselling book lists are now sprinkled with adult coloring books and they are flying off the shelves.
When we were kids we didn’t have the responsibilities we now have as adults and we could just do something because we wanted to, for the pure joy of it, like coloring.
Coloring in is not just fun it can also be a great stress reliever and lets your brain have some much needed rest and relaxation. The hardest thing about coloring in is deciding what colored pencil you want to use.
The variety of coloring books is amazing. You can choose from animals, cities and architecture, flowers and landscape, humorous, mandalas and patterns, inspirational and even swear word coloring books. Apart from the variety you have to choose from most of them are under $10.
A set of colored pencils (get a decent set of pencils – say 24 plus – so you have more shades to choose from) and you are good to go. Remember to get a pencil sharpener.
Try it out and you may just surprise yourself how much you enjoy it. At the very least you will have something colorful to put on your fridge.
Painting
If you ever flunked art class at school – forget about it – everyone can paint and it is great fun. All you need is a set of paints, brushes, a canvas and someone to show you how.
YouTube is an excellent resource to see what style of painting you would like to try. The Bob Ross, Joy of Painting was a long running TV series which started in 1983 and finished in 1994. His fun, easy to follow lessons using oil paints was hugely popular and you can now watch the entire series and paint along with Bob on YouTube.
If you prefer acrylic paints, which can sometimes be easier to use, a good YouTube channel is Theartsherpa. Theartsherpa has loads of fun, easy painting lessons as well as some videos using the Bob Ross method of painting using acrylics.
These over the shoulder lessons will list the paints, brushes and any other mediums they will be using so you can have everything ready to go for your first art lesson in the holidays.
Beginner paint sets are great as they can include the paints, brushes, canvas boards and instruction booklet. The sets can be for acrylic, watercolor or oil paints. Make sure when looking at any of the kits that the brushes and canvas or paper (if you are doing watercolors) is included.
Still don’t think you can paint? Yes, you can, try a paint by numbers for adults.
There are the most stunning paintings you can now do by the paint by numbers technique. The canvas and paints are numbered and you just fill in the canvas section with the corresponding paint number. Read the description of the kits to make sure the brushes are included.
Drawing/Sketching
Again, such a wide variety of books or DVDs to choose from when learning to draw or sketch.
If that seems a little overwhelming to the first time artist go to the children’s section and check out the fabulous and fun drawing books on offer. You can learn to draw animals, aircraft, cars, Disney characters, princesses, dinosaurs, people, pets, aliens, pirates and monsters!
Don’t be embarrassed about buying kids drawing books as they are some of the easiest ones to get started with. Once you realize you can actually draw something your confidence will skyrocket.
There are also some excellent drawing pencil kits but make sure there is a pencil sharpener and eraser included. If not grab them too – nothing worse than trying to sharpen a pencil with a kitchen knife or rubbing out a line with your finger! All you need now is a sketch pad and you’re ready to start drawing.
Whether it’s coloring in, painting or drawing have fun these holidays by putting some color in your life.
