This is the first in a series of hobby posts that I hope someone will find useful. I will do a post on each of my hobbies (and put up some guest posts) over the next while.
Hobby: Colouring
Cost: Low
Time Required: Completely up to you
I found it hard to believe when I was first told that there were “adult” colouring books. The thought of spending time colouring various scenes didn’t really appeal to me, but J picked up a colouring book based on fractal patterns for me to try. All I had to colour with were some old highlighters but one night I sat down and gave it a shot. I was very surprised at how relaxing it was to slowly fill in a picture line by line like an old dot matrix printer. By just concentrating on the lines and trying to make them all uniform was a good distraction from the world around me.
The good news is adult colouring books can be found almost everywhere nowadays. Your local dollar store should have a selection, and every bookstore I’ve been in seems to have them too. They range in price from less than a dollar to $50 or more, and they range in complexity from simple geometric shapes to insanely detailed pictures. You probably have some markers or pencil crayons lying around somewhere, but if you don’t, they can be had for very reasonable prices too.
In my case, I really enjoy geometric shapes. I’m not as much into colouring a scene with a bird or something like that. Here is the picture that so far has taken me the longest to finish:
I did this one while I was in the psych ward. Some of the people around me would comment on how much patience I must have had, but it was really all about relaxing. Marker down. Draw line. Marker up. Move marker. Marker down. Draw line. You get the idea.
The best part about being an adult is if there’s a pattern or scene you don’t feel like colouring, you don’t have to! Even if you start one and aren’t happy with it, you don’t have to finish it! If you want to colour the whole thing orange, you can do that, too!
I usually have three or four pictures on the go at any one time, and rotate through them when I feel like I’m getting bored of the one I’m working on. J just got me some pencil crayons the other day so that’s going to open up a whole new range of possibilities as far as colouring goes.
Colouring is a great way to pass the time and help forget about the problems of the world around you. It’s not very expensive to start, and it can keep you occupied for hours at a time.
Stay safe!