Coloring not just for kids anymore

Martin Schneider didn't go to the Tattooed Mom on a recent Sunday afternoon for football-watching or pool-playing. The 27-year-old took a friend to drink cider on tap - and to color.

"I appreciate going to a relaxing place where people can get together and make art of varying quality, even for someone like me who isn't artistically inclined," said Schneider, of South Philly.

The bar in Queen Village draws 50 to 100 people between noon and midnight on any given Sunday to color - sometimes original illustrations by local artists. The finished pages often are posted online or hung in the bar, said owner Robert Perry.

The appeal, he said, is that "it allows you to connect with something almost everyone did as a kid" - even if the subjects are less Snoopy, more Snoop Dogg.

A pastime once reserved for kids is now just as sought out by adults, as participants say coloring books are relatively inexpensive ($7-$20), don't need batteries, and appeal to all skill levels. Getting a new pack of markers, crayons, or pencils still can generate delight.

Although coloring books are hardly new, their popularity among adults exploded a year ago, mostly due to the release of Johanna Basford's Secret Garden - highly detailed pen-and-ink illustrations with tiny garden creatures hidden within - which has since sold more than a million copies, said Kasandra Flannigan of the Willow Grove Barnes & Noble store.

"Shortly after, we saw lots of customers coming in for books in other categories - landscaping, cities, flowers, butterflies. Something for everyone," she said.

The demand was so high the retailer established a new section: A Creative Activity Everyone Can Enjoy. There's even a bargain table of adult coloring books that greets customers as they enter the store. Barnes & Noble devoted July to a Get Pop-Cultured theme in which coloring "played a huge role," said Flannigan, the store's community business development manager.

"We live very busy lives full of tasks, responsibilities, and deadlines to meet," she said. "Coloring is a way to relax and express ourselves creatively and take a break from it all."

That's evidenced by the most popular titles, which are geared toward mindfulness and relaxation: Color Me Calm by Lacy Mucklow, for example, and Posh Adult Coloring Book: Soothing Designs for Fun and Relaxation by Andrews McMeel Publishing. Some include intricate designs, others offer easier ones for novices.

Amazon carries about 5,000 adult coloring book titles; four are among its top 20 best-sellers, said Seira Wilson, Amazon's senior books editor.

"I've seen more published in 2015 than all of last year," she said. Wilson predicted The Secret Garden Artist's Edition, with 20 single-sided pages on thicker card stock made to be framed, and A Game of Thrones coloring book due out Tuesday, will be big sellers as holiday gifts. She also knew of a set soon to be published that includes colored pencils along with the book, "for the least creative among us - because it gives you the colors already."

Andrea Leighton of Northern Liberties says she gets "obsessed" with coloring, spending anywhere from 15 minutes to five hours at a time doing it.

"It is so relaxing," Leighton said. "I'm very anxious and it relieves a lot of stress."

Leighton spotted her first book in the spring at a museum shop but now finds them in bookstores, big-box stores, and online.

"There are so many options out there on the market; I'll pick an easier page if I only have an hour or two," she said. Some pages are so detailed they can take a week to finish.

Spending about $300 on supplies for herself and $100 more on gifts for others, Leighton has learned which books are more detailed or made of better stock, and she noticed not all colored pencils are created equal: After completing half a book recently, she saw her colors were smudging, so she plunked down about $100 for a new, smudgeless set.

She's even taken her passion to her work life as owner of Color Me Mine in Voorhees.

"We are pre-drawing coloring designs on the pottery and firing it once, so it's like a coloring book," she said. Patrons can paint the design and have it refired. "Even if they're not artistic, it's something that inspires them."

One Tattooed Mom regular, Josean Rivera, a South Philadelphia artist who goes by the name Bean, first created a coloring page for his wedding last summer.

"It was meant to be for the kids, but the adults took over," he said. About the same time, people he knew were holding Phish viewing parties - where people would get together and watch a simulcast of the band's concerts - and wanting to color. So he created a coloring sheet that he posted on his website, www.phishart.net.

When Point Breeze artist Joey Hartmann-Dow created a black-and-white greeting card for a friend, then later decided to color it in, she realized there might be stock in making a coloring book. That resulted in I'm Feeling My Feelings, 30 drawings in a tearaway pad, something that would be "accessible for anybody," she said.

With crowdfunding help, Hartmann-Dow printed 100 copies of the $20 coloring book for the 2014 holidays - they sold out immediately. After selling two more runs that totaled 250, she's planning to add a coloring calendar this year.

"Coloring is a meditative process and it gives you a chance to do something that's a little bit mindless," she said, "but you're also focusing."