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| "Evolution" From Angie Grace's Balance, by Nandu |
A recent radio interview on NPR with Johanna Basford,
a Scottish artist/illustrator introduced me to the world of Adult Coloring.
Yes, there are coloring books for adults – and they are being consumed in such
quantities that Basford’s books are sold out after selling over 1.4 million
copies. While eagerly awaiting the re-stocking of her books, I shopped for
alternatives, and entered the black and white world of Angie Grace. Angie
Grace’s range of coloring books for adults have an enormous fan-following. They
are among the top 100 best-selling art books sold on Amazon. Angie Grace’s page
on Facebook, Color With Angie Grace,
was created only eight months ago. At the time of this writing, it has over 800
members and growing, and more than 3500 pictures of members’ color creations
from Grace’s books.
I can only describe entering the black and white
pages of a coloring book like tumbling into Alice’s proverbial rabbit-hole.
It’s a fall that takes you deeper and deeper into the world of interpreting
shapes with color. You go compulsively from room to room, - to spaces confined
by black lines on a white field, wielding your multi-colored pens until the
last stroke of pigment has been rendered. That’s when you regain consciousness,
briefly admire your work, - maybe post it on social media - and then move on to
the next rabbit-hole to repeat the process. Somewhere along the way, you go
through the motions of other aspects of your life, all the while looking
forward to your next visit to Wonderland.
News articles on adults coloring have all made note
of the fact that coloring is a stress-reliever. The subtitles of Grace’s books
read: Angie’s Extreme Stress Menders – a marketing ploy, no doubt, to entice
the stressed-out (who isn’t?) but the not-so-artistically-inclined customer to
buy the book. Coloring is indeed very therapeutic, as is any fine art such as
playing a musical instrument. To recognize the therapeutic effects of coloring, but not acknowledge the inherently artistic nature of it is, if you’ll excuse
my pun, a monochromatic view on the art.
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| Mandala by Nandu |
Through my own initiation into the world of coloring,
and journeys down rabbit-holes, I have come to ponder over some questions about
art:
Is photography an art? Few would deny that
photography is a pursuit that requires skill
to compose good quality portraiture and scenery. It is an art, but one that
has been made easy for the dilettante to engage in, thanks to digital
technology. But there was a time in our history when all portraits and
pictorial representations of scenery were only ever hand drawn and painted.
Does that make photography a faux art?
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| LotusMandala by Nandu |
The appeal of adult coloring books is that it caters
to the artistically inclined whose talents do not include imaginative drawing.
I am a prime example of someone in this category. Pre-drawn designs allow me
the opportunity to exercise my skills in color composition and combination, something
I would be unable to engage in if I had to produce the designs on my own. Since I didn’t draw what I colored, there are
questions of ownership and authenticity:
If the finished piece is not entirely your doing, can
you truly say that it is yours? My post on social-media of my first colored
design received many compliments that prompted me to question whether I
deserved the praise. After all, I had “only” colored inside the lines. My early
opinion on this matter went along with the notion that if I had not drawn the
design to begin with, the finished picture would somehow not be authentically
mine. On the surface, this seems to be a logical perception, but perhaps a more
nuanced view is required.
Is a
collaborative piece of art (where you
draw, and I color) less authentic than one done entirely by a single
individual? If Da Vinci had captured the Mona Lisa smile with his
Pentax instead of his paintbrush, would he have been a lesser artist?
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| From Secret Garden by Prue Jack, Founder of Inside The Lines |
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| From Secret Garden, by Prue Jack |
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| Night at the Secret Garden, by Prue Jack |
If collaboration, or reliance on technology
disqualifies something as being authentic, then all art is in trouble. Every
artistic endeavor is, to some extent, collaborative when compared to how the
art was practiced in previous generations. Artists of today have a phenomenal
array of paints, and brushes and pens and other paraphernalia to choose from. But in the years before tube paints were
manufactured, artists had to fashion their own tools, and mix their own colors.
Being an artist entailed knowing how to mix paint, knowing the properties of
pigments (their hue, chroma, light-fastness,
compatibility with other pigments, drying attributes etc.) and a range of other
skills connected to making fresh paint every day. Today’s artists need only to
walk into an art store where paints and other artists’ tools are supplied, ready-to-use,
with impressive choices - however, for impressive prices too!
Having a relatively easier task compared to prior
generations does not invalidate the existing skills that are put into use in
creating a work of art. New categories of art are born out of advances in
technology and the availability of material that previously didn’t exist – such
as in the case of photography. Similarly, the term colorist is now being
used to describe artists who color pictures drawn by someone else.
Thus “collaborating” with Johanna Basford or Angie
Grace does not make your artistic work any less authentic. There is a lot of
room for creativity when interpreting ready-made drawings. Below are different renditions
of the same drawings that I hope will illustrate this point:
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| Basford Heart, by Nandu |
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| Basford Heart, by Prue Jack |
Coloring inside pre-drawn lines is a fine art. But it is
one that anybody, of any skill level can attempt. I dare you to try your hand
at it once, and then resist the desire to do more!
Links:
On Facebook:
Inside The Lines – A coloring group where you can
post your pictures, see what others are coloring, get links to free downloads
to print and color, and information on resources etc. Join us!
Color With Angie Grace - A group devoted to sharing colorings from Angie Grace books only.
