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It's all coming back.

Ugh. Colouring books for grown ups. Zoeey Deschanel. Cupcakes. Zoella. Ball pits for adults. Cereal Cafes. Those Eurovision f***ers. Hobbycraft. It seems the 21st century is drowning in a syrupy avalanche of twee. I was hoping the future would be a bit more like Bladerunner and a bit less like infants school.
 
My boss just bought an 'adult colouring book'.

I was disappointed with the contents.
 
It's funny, but I had a vague idea that this 'colouring book for adults' would happen. So many people hark back to their childhoods, when the best times they had were when they were doing this.
It's now being marketed as therapy.
I've seen a few adverts for it on telly now.
The ones I really liked when I was a kid were the ones that had encapsulated paint already printed on. All you had to do was paint on some water, and the colour magically appeared. I bet they're not available now.

Edit: Just had a look - they are available! Just not with the same quality of illustrations.
 
There was a Led Zep album with that feature!
 
Mythopoeika said:
It's funny, but I had a vague idea that this 'colouring book for adults' would happen. So many people hark back to their childhoods, when the best times they had were when they were doing this.
It's now being marketed as therapy.
I've seen a few adverts for it on telly now.
The ones I really liked when I was a kid were the ones that had encapsulated paint already printed on. All you had to do was paint on some water, and the colour magically appeared. I bet they're not available now.

Edit: Just had a look - they are available! Just not with the same quality of illustrations.
Click to expand...

I'd forgotten all about them! .. :) ... fuzzy felts would still win in a fight though ...
 
Fuzzy felts! I remember them too... :cool:
 
Mythopoeika said:
It's funny, but I had a vague idea that this 'colouring book for adults' would happen. So many people hark back to their childhoods, when the best times they had were when they were doing this.
It's now being marketed as therapy.
I've seen a few adverts for it on telly now.
The ones I really liked when I was a kid were the ones that had encapsulated paint already printed on. All you had to do was paint on some water, and the colour magically appeared. I bet they're not available now.

Edit: Just had a look - they are available! Just not with the same quality of illustrations.
Click to expand...


Me too. I have some of these books, left by my mum after she died. I sat down and did some colouring with my daughter last week, and I found it quite therapeutic (although I struggled with the fact that I was doing something that I felt was pointless). It was actually quite refreshing to do something that doesn't involve looking at a PC/TV/tablet/mobile phone screen.
 
A lot of people do art as a hobby because it's soothing, plus the sense of achievement - and the activity is used quite widely as actual therapy, too. But colouring books sound like one step down from paint by numbers (do you still get them?).

Mind you, nobody's going to hang a colouring book page on the wall, so maybe the basic, disposable quality is part of the attraction.
 
GNC said:
A lot of people do art as a hobby because it's soothing, plus the sense of achievement - and the activity is used quite widely as actual therapy, too. But colouring books sound like one step down from paint by numbers (do you still get them?).
Click to expand...

Yes, they are still sold. But in vastly smaller quantities now that everybody has a tablet with a paint package on it.

GNC said:
Mind you, nobody's going to hang a colouring book page on the wall, so maybe the basic, disposable quality is part of the attraction.
Click to expand...

There is an artist who has done some 'ironic' art - which is essentially huge paint-by-numbers paintings. Can't remember his name now.
 
Mythopoeika said:
There is an artist who has done some 'ironic' art - which is essentially huge paint-by-numbers paintings. Can't remember his name now.
Click to expand...

Jeff Koons, maybe? I know he uses that technique when his minions paint his creations.
 
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