Child’s play

Stepping into a bookshop the other day (that is, an old-school, physical kind of bookshop with shelves and all), I wasn’t too surprised to see the entire front section dedicated to colouring-in books – not for kids; but for adults.

I’d been reading a lot lately about this sudden fascination of adults doing colouring-in as a kind of ‘therapeutic pastime’. That’s right, sitting at their desks, Faber Castells in hand, prettying up black-and-white drawings with bright bursts of colour – all in the name of therapy.

But some psychologists and critics are saying it’s all a load of hog-wash.

Cathy Malchiodi, an art therapist in the US, recently told The Guardian that simply colouring in drawings by other people isn’t exactly being creative and therefore not much of an outlet for creativity and de-stressing.

Basically, Malchiodi finds the adult colouring-in trend a disappointing one, telling the media outlet, “This year, there have been good studies about why people should engage in creative activity, which doesn’t involve colouring in someone else’s designs.”

Malchiodi, and critics like her, say that if you want to colour, fine, let it rip, but don’t go calling it meditation or therapy.

Still, some publishers are stamping their colouring-in books with promises that these will help you “de-stress” and “self-express”.

Some aren’t so blatant in these promises but they certainly glamorise the trend, such as the recently published Vogue Colouring Book, packed with illustrations inspired by images from British Vogue through the 1950s (a period that continues to inspire contemporary designers including Miuccia Prada, Dolce & Gabbana and Australia’s own Aurelio Costarella and Alex Perry).

Vogue doesn’t tell readers that its colouring-in book will provide antidotes to all the stress and noise out there, but it does cotton on to a trend, therefore alluding to readers that they must so too if they are to feel on-trend and good about themselves.

The adults-acting-like-kids antics don’t end with colouring-in. Now there are ‘Anti-Stress Dot-to-Dot’ books that boast “beautiful, calming pictures to complete yourself”. As elaborate as some of these finished drawings are, the book begs the question, ‘What can I find here that I couldn’t already have found in your everyday dot-to-dot book?’

In this scribe’s experience, doing anything creative – drawing, painting, cake-decorating, decoupage-making – is a fairly therapeutic outlet. Indeed so is doing something as simple as listening to music. But to go out and actually make something – to do those drawings yourself, make that cake from scratch, learn how to play the piano or guitar – that is where the real therapeutic value lies.  Antonino Tati

‘Anti-Stress Dot-to-Dot’ by Emily Wallis is published through Boxtree / Pan Macmillan, RRP $17.99, available in December.

‘Vogue Colouring Book’ by Iain R. Webb is published through Conran Octopus / Hachette, RRP 16.99, available now.