Colour Me Calm…

It seems that I can’t walk past a book shelf, newsagent, stationery store, train station, or anywhere, at the moment, than I encounter gleaming packets of brand new felt pens and colouring pencils accompanying stacks of adult colouring books.

Colour therapy. Colour for stress relief. This seems to be the latest in self-help and as ever I found myself dubious about whether this activity could actually have a calming effect. Its only initial appeal to me was a nostalgic longing for Crayola colours and crisp black lines on a fresh colouring book to stay between.

I was given Millie Marotta’s Animal Kingdom (clearly at this stage in life I am exhibiting an outwards appearance of anything but calm!) and immediately took to the Internet, taking great joy in ordering colouring pencils that included gold and silver – money well spent having now tested them.

So next time I had an idle moment (and by idle I mean those rare moments when I am neither working, reading nor writing and am sitting watching a film or tv) I got into colouring poise and carefully opened my colouring pencils in readiness.

I flicked through the beautiful pages of the book and agonised over where to start, a lack of confidence in myself to do the pictures justice holding me back. Then the rational part of my took over (how much damage could I do, really???) and I dove straight into a full page of an elephant. In pastels and golds I coloured him and it was all going swimmingly until my hand wavered and I strayed over the line ruining the symmetry of the image that had been.

Yes, that terrible perfectionist within me struggles even now with those traces of human behaviour that make me less than perfect. I stare at the pages for an age trying to work out where the best place for this and that colour to go, and where to add colour and where to let the crisp white and black of the printed page dominate. I berate myself when I stray over the lines and frown when I realise that one shade lighter would have worked better for that feather.

I can see the appeal of this craze, and yes, overall, I would have to say I have enjoyed the few colouring therapy sessions I have undertaken. But there is a constant struggle within myself between colour me calm and colour me perfect. I hope that as time goes on I learn to let go the need to make every image ‘right’ and manage to just enjoy losing myself for a time in this simple art.

Elloise Hopkins.