Free Your Mind with Free Art Colouring Pages
It may be old news that colouring for all ages is becoming more and more popular. As a child, it was liberating and frustrating. Liberating because crayons are awesome and smattering colour all over a page feels good, frustrating because everyone was always telling you to stay in the lines. The latter though would become the basis for resistance, where my rebel heart was born and fed, and truthfully, later in life realised that my ‘handedness’ played a part as well. My freedom and daring with crayons was also my curse, even if I wanted to stay in the lines it was physically difficult for me. Even though it’s said that colouring develops fine motor skills, that wasn’t true for me. It actually highlighted my lack of them.
The act of colouring has unforeseen consequences.
The assumption is that colouring is a therapeutic exercise for adults allowing them to get back in touch with their inner child and to relax and unwind. That may be true, still, putting colours into shapes and onto a page and into their surrounding lines quietly teaches adults about composition, colour and seeing. Plus, adult brains immersing self in the activity can also put you into an alpha state, where creativity is born. Other deeper states such as the theta state can open you to a well of creative insights too but it’s unlikely that colouring or many other activities can get you there.
For many, it does provide structure and relief. There are critics and supporters, for example in the New Yorker article, “Why Adults Are Buying Coloring Books (For Themselves),” by Adrienne Raphel, she interviewed Susan Jacoby, an author and scholar who has this to say about this phenomenon and cultural trend in adult colouring in the United States:
“The coloring book is an artifact of a broader cultural shift. And that cultural shift is a bad thing.” According to Jacoby, adults who immerse themselves in escapist fantasies like coloring books, camps, and preschool are regressing into safe patterns in order to avoid confronting the world around them.
Detractors or proponents of the activity can say what they want. It might not be “art” but it can bring people closer to art and the appreciation of it. Thus, I decided to create a pinboard with a lot of the “Masters” works that have been converted into black & white line drawings for free art colouring pages. Why? Because if people are going to get creative with colouring, they might as well learn from the masters.
“I don’t think art is propaganda; it should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further. It celebrates humanity instead of manipulating it.” — Keith Haring
The selection of free art colouring pages includes a wide variety of works from artists like Botticelli, Van Gogh, Leger, Dali, Mondrian and many others. All of the pages ‘pinned’ are free to download, just click on the ‘visit site’ box on the board you like on Pinterest.
What You Need
All you need is a few sheets of paper, a BW printer and some colours in the form of crayons, markers, pencils, or paints. Or, if you like some of them offer you the option to colour them directly on-line or you can save the files and colour in any paint program or go for the more sophisticated software if you are interested in colouring in the virtual world.
Visit my Pinterest board with the pages by clicking on the image below:
What do you think about this activity for adults? Let me know in the comments and if you found this post useful, show me some love by tapping on the ❤ button at the end of this post.
If you like art you can also follow my Pinterest board, Artists I Like which features a variety of artists, click on the image below:
You can read more about colouring books at the following links:
p.s. Colouring books have their origins in painting books — check this out, it has pages that you can reproduce and colour too:
Finally, you can also read more of my articles here or join my mailing list here and get notified when more stories are published.
About The Author
Amy Adams is a fine artist (MFA Painting — Academia de Arte Vizuale Ion Andreescu) living and working out of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She is passionate about the visual arts and music.
Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or visit my website.
