Today is National Colouring Book Day. 10 facts about colouring books:
Some of the earliest colouring books were produced in Germany and published in Philadelphia by John Weik & Co." around 1858.
However, it was probably the children’s illustrator Kate Greenaway who helped make them popular. In the late 1870s, she teamed up with publisher Cassell Petter & Galpin for The ‘Little Folks’ Painting Book, a reference to a children’s magazine that Cassell Petter & Galpin published. Children could enter their coloured in pictures into competitions to win prizes.
In the 19th century, colouring books were mainly for the education of children and improving their minds.
The first colouring book for adults was published in 1961 and was a satire about office culture. "This is me. I am an executive. Executives are important. They go to important offices and do important things. Color my underwear important."
Similar satirical colouring books followed, poking fun at other subjects like political extremism, social movements, the Soviet Union, communism, President John F. Kennedy, and mental illness. People would often buy them for a laugh rather than to actually colour them in.
Barbra Streisand had a hit in 1962 with a song called My Coloring Book.
Colouring in is good for you. Researchers have found that people who coloured in mandalas experienced lower levels of anxiety than people who simply coloured on a blank piece of paper. Focusing on different shapes and patterns in a structured way helps people to shut off negative thoughts, and become calmer. Colouring books are also used in rehabilitation of accident victims to aid recovery of hand–eye coordination, and with autistic children for entertainment and for their soothing effect.
Digital colouring is a thing as well. A number of websites offer this including Disney, which offers Disney Color and Play, an app that lets you use your smartphone or tablet to transform 2D images of Disney characters into colourful, digital 3D artworks.
There’s even a company that will turn your photographs into personalised colouring books.
Finally, there’s even a Reverse Colouring Book available on Amazon which provides pages of watercoloured abstract art, and you add the lines.
The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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