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# I’ve Had My Fill of Adult Coloring Books
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/ive-had-my-fill-of-adult-coloring-books/
- Published: 2016-09-29T21:00:34.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:47:27.000Z
- Description: In the past three or so years, coloring has become a massive trend for adults.
- Author: Jillian Steinhauer
- Tags: Opinion, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:17 (2016, 2017, part 1)

![As seen at Barnes & Noble (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/09/coloring1.jpg)

As seen at Barnes & Noble (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)

Here’s a story: Once upon a time, in an apartment far, far away — so far it was right next to the BQE — my friend threw a party. I attended said party, where I drank alcohol and smoked a plant only legal in certain states, and at the end of the night, I found myself sitting on a couch, next to my friend, coloring in a coloring book. It was relaxing yet deeply absorbing, as I stared at the pages in non-thought and tried to determine which blue should go where and what shade to use for a figure’s hair. (Was it Dora the Explorer? It just might have been.) My friend explained that she and her boyfriend did this sometimes — smoked and colored — and in that moment, in that situation, *I totally got it*. I determined to go home and get myself a coloring book, to use when I needed to unwind.

And then, dear reader, I never did. That was seven years ago. I haven’t colored since.

My friend and her boyfriend were ahead of the times. In the past three or so years, coloring has become a [massive trend](http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/why-adults-are-buying-coloring-books-for-themselves?ref=hyperallergic.com) for adults: there are [coloring clubs](http://cleverpedia.com/coloring-meetups/?ref=hyperallergic.com) and parties, [YouTube channels that let you watch people color](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXUSeQv9TmMqtifvn9pafMQ?ref=hyperallergic.com), and more importantly, there are books — millions and millions of them. Some [12 million](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-big-business-behind-the-adult-coloring-book-craze/2016/03/09/ccf241bc-da62-11e5-891a-4ed04f4213e8%5Fstory.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) adult coloring books were sold in the US in 2015, a number so high it helped determine the boom in the year’s print book sales. “If it wasn’t for coloring books,” [*Fortune*](http://fortune.com/2015/12/22/print-book-sales/?ref=hyperallergic.com) wrote, “the printed-book business would likely look substantially weaker than it does.”

Lately, Hyperallergic has begun receiving a generous sampling of the adult coloring books that have been hitting the market. To name a few: There are [*Color London*](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062484419/hyperallergic-20?ref=hyperallergic.com) and [*Paris*](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062445138/hyperallergic-20?ref=hyperallergic.com), whose cutesy, unremarkable street scenes you can fill in while reading short blurbs about their locations; [*Collaborate with Zio*](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/006244686X/hyperallergic-20?ref=hyperallergic.com) is filled with “open source hieroglyphics” that you “coauthor” by coloring them; Jon Burgerman’s scribbly [*Burgerworld*](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1780678754/hyperallergic-20?ref=hyperallergic.com) “doesn’t take itself too seriously”; [*Inspiring Patterns*](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3791372572/hyperallergic-20?ref=hyperallergic.com) is filled with entirely uninspiring patterns, allegedly “in the style of modern and contemporary art”; [*Fairies in Wonderland*](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062419986/hyperallergic-20?ref=hyperallergic.com) is a journey filled with riddles and thus, according to its press release, “a one-of-a-kind addition to the growing coloring book canon”; and [*Another F\*cking Coloring Book*](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/144059841X/hyperallergic-20?ref=hyperallergic.com)was written by someone trying unbearably hard to be ironic and sound cool — one page shows a little bird surrounded by shooting stars, saying, “Have a great day, you worthless turd.” Um … OK?

![Coloring books sent to the Hyperallergic office](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/09/coloring2.jpg)

Coloring books sent to the Hyperallergic office thus far this year

But my favorite is [*Color Your Own Dutch Masters*](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062484427/hyperallergic-20?ref=hyperallergic.com). This book, whose back cover is a solid, thick board, allows you to recolor such already colored masterpieces as Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” (c. 1665) and Rembrandt’s “The Jewish Bride” (c. 1667). What the point of this activity might be, I really can’t say. Just to see what the girl would look like if she had a green face? To try and recreate Rembrandt’s expert handling of oil paint with colored pencils? Because you’re dissatisfied with the originals?

Look, sure, coloring is fun. Not only that — it can be [vaguely meditative](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/11/sorry-benedict-cumberbatch-your-head-is-fine/414010/?ref=hyperallergic.com), it can help you [get through trauma](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/adult-coloring-books-are-not-just-a-fad-for-some-they-are-a-lifesaver/2016/05/02/47449320-f8c2-11e5-a3ce-f06b5ba21f33%5Fstory.html?ref=hyperallergic.com), it’s [creative in its own way](http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/05/meet-the-adults-who-love-to-color.html?ref=hyperallergic.com), and it can offer [something tactile to focus on](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/30/business/media/grown-ups-get-out-their-crayons.html?%5Fr=0&ref=hyperallergic.com) when you’ve spent too many hours staring at your computer or phone. I’ve read the arguments. I don’t think they’re wrong, per se; I just think that *maybe* we’ve gone too far. A press release appeared in my inbox the other day, pronouncing, “Miami’s Most Important Art District Comes Back to Life After the Zika Scare.” It was a press release [*for a coloring book*](http://wynwoodcoloringbook.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com). Apparently, somehow, a coloring book produced by the businesspeople who have art-washed and gentrified a Miami neighborhood beyond recognition have defeated the Zika virus with a coloring book. That sounds like the plot of a lost *Captain Planet* episode.

As many have pointed out, with coloring, the stakes are low. The process amounts to making a series of small, manageable decisions that can consume your brain enough to distract it, but not enough to further distress it. Coloring is easy, which is why we love it — it offers an outlet in a world where so much is difficult.

The thing is, disconnecting from digital devices, meditating, creating, and processing trauma — all the activities coloring supposedly engenders — *aren’t* easy. They are, in fact, varying levels of hard. Making a painting takes work. Quieting your mind is exceedingly difficult. Finding a way to deal with your trauma can be impossible. Coloring may help in some small way with these things, but *it is not these things* — or, as Thu-Huong Ha put it so sagely in [Quartz](http://qz.com/650378/the-sad-reason-american-adults-are-so-obsessed-with-coloring-books/?ref=hyperallergic.com), coloring is “therapeutic without being therapy, meditative without being meditation, creative without being creation, artsy without being art.”

Which is perfectly OK! I am not an anti-coloring Nazi! But as Thu and others have noted, it also means that coloring plays a little too perfectly into the self-help industry, which generates massive amounts of money for businesses and “gurus” while offering dubious amounts of real help to real people.

Mainly, I find those 12 million adult coloring books to be something of a missed opportunity. Where we could be encouraging folks to dream up and draw their own creations, then color them in, we’re instead prompting people to shade in images made by *real* artists (each of these books has a prominently listed artist). Where we could be pushing people to try something demanding, we’re instead telling them to go for what’s mindless. Many of us are deeply afraid to fail; conveniently, it’s impossible to fail at coloring (straying outside the lines is an artistic choice, of course). Everybody needs an escape sometimes, myself included. But in my experience, a more satisfying one comes from knowing the drawing will suck and insisting on making it anyway.