Adult Coloring ~ Articles

1. Baby oil is a great tool to jazz up you everyday colored pencils or markers.  Start by gently coloring your base.  Then apply a drop of baby oil to a cotton swab and push the pigmentation outwards into your corners and edges.  This is a great way to soften and blur your lines and make you artwork look like paint.  Just start small to not pucker your paper.  You don't want to saturate your artwork, but gently smudge your colors.

2. Save your pencil shavings because you can use the powdery pencil dust to color.  Dump some out where you want your color to go and gently blend it in with your finger.  This will give you a light and very soft look.

3. Use texture.  You can place any flat item with texture under your paper and transfer the texture by gently coloring over top.

Colors themselves carry therapeutic qualities, according to licensed clinical professional art therapist Lacy Mucklow, co-author of the coloring books Color Me Happy and Color Me Calm.  Selecting colors can literally affect your mood.  Here's a guide to how you can use colors to rev up or calm down---or combine them for a total mood makeover.

Cool colors like blue, green and purple have a calming effect.  Use them to literally chill out.

Warm colors like red, orange and yellow are pepper-uppers.  Try them when you want to brighten a bad mood.

Bright colors are energizing, so turn to them when you want a little inner lift.

Dark colors carry a relaxing energy and can be used to ratchet down an overactive mind.

Pastels and light tints communicate softness and help soothe the soul.