Adult Coloring Therapy

A little over a year ago I went through a very difficult time. I resorted to several different types of therapy, at least one of which somewhat ironically made the situation even worse. Since that time I moved back home to DC, started a new job, left my presence on all social media (except Pinterest, everyone needs a harmless addiction to indulge in from time to time), and found healing through hiking, Geocaching, and gourmet paper/cloth mache. But my newest discovered form of relaxation was one that really caught me by surprise - Coloring for adults.

I had no idea that there were coloring books for adults until one Saturday morning when I was driving past the White House on my way home from visiting my parents over the Potomac in Virginia, listening to the same Elliott in the Morning radio show on DC101 that I listened to back in High School (DC101 oddly hasn't changed at all since the early 90s, playing exactly the same music as it did then). Elliott was talking about two books that were wildly popular, jealous that the author had made a huge amount of money very quickly. This piqued my interest and I was shocked when I realized that Elliott was talking about two adult coloring books that had sold out in the States, British author Johanna Basford's "Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book" and "Enchanted Forest: An Inky Quest & Coloring Book".

I pre-ordered Basford's second book, Enchanted Forest, though it isn't scheduled to be available for several months. In the meantime I ordered another adult coloring book, "Balance: Angie's Extreme Stress Menders Volume 1" by Angie Grace. Using various combinations of Babel and Fanasia colored pencils and Staedtler and Pentel markers, here are a few of the mandalas I have colored so far: