The Art & Science of Coloring

One of my hand drawn A5 dashboards with a coordinating bookmark. From Left to Right: Original drawing; Drawing colored in with markers and gel pens, Back of dashboard embellished with washi tape and stickers.

I feel as though scientific research is finally catching up with my life.

When I was growing up doodling in class was frowned upon and without that outlet I spent a lot of my time fidgeting and daydreaming.  I would sharpen my pencil or go to the bathroom as often as possible for some relief from the monotony of class. Its now been found that doodling actually helps to improve focus and recall. If that wasn't bad enough, during my teen years I began getting increasingly irritated by the sound of normal, everyday noises like other people chewing or breathing. Understandably the people in my life were perplexed and assumed that I was looking for attention or just trying to be difficult. The discomfort I felt drove a wedge in my relationships with family and friends. There is now a name for the anger and distress that is triggered by these sounds, it's called misophonia and finding out that I was not the only person affected by this was life changing. Finally, in the past coloring was considered to be just for kids. Now it is believed that coloring is not only enjoyable but has positive benefits for adults.  I can't help but to wonder how my childhood and adolescence would have been different if this information was available to me, my parents and my teachers. I revel in this new knowledge as I doodle my way through meetings, explain to people its not them its me as I turn up the music during mealtimes and draw and color in the evenings as a way to unwind and center myself.

The following is an excerpt form an article in the Huffington Post written by Elena Santos from

10/13/2014

When coloring, we activate different areas of our two cerebral hemispheres, says psychologist Gloria Martínez Ayala. "The action involves both logic, by which we color forms, and creativity, when mixing and matching colors. This incorporates the areas of the cerebral cortex involved in vision and fine motor skills [coordination necessary to make small, precise movements]. The relaxation that it provides lowers the activity of the amygdala, a basic part of our brain involved in controlling emotion that is affected by stress."
In simplest terms, coloring has a de-stressing effect because when we focus on a particular activity, we focus on it and not on our worries. But it also "brings out our imagination and takes us back to our childhood, a period in which we most certainly had a lot less stress." This leads us immediately and unconsciously to welfare, exposes the specialist.

One of my favorite things to do at night is to sit and draw after my husband and the kids have gone to bed. I sit on the couch with the cat on my lap and a draw whatever comes to mind. Recently I've been drawing pictures that I can then color in and laminate to use as dashboards in my Heidi Swapp Memory Planner.

Here's my method for coloring:

First I color in the background areas with brush pens. I often use Tim Holtz distress markers. I love the fact that they all coordinate with one another which makes it easy to ensure I use colors that work well together. Recently I have also been using Tombow dual tipped brush pens. I love  these as well and feel like the brush tips on the Tombows are more durable.

 

I use gel pens for details and accents. The pens I am using currently I got from my mom for my last birthday, I believe that she bought them at Costco.

I add additional detail with a white gel pen. The only one that I use is the Signo Uniball which I use it a lot. A LOT. The pen writes smoothly and has the best coverage I've found. For me the key to using it is to almost float it over the paper rather than pressing down. I've also found that when the pen stops writing smoothly if I write on the back of my hand or on a piece of shiny magazine paper for a second or two it will start working again (not sure why this works but it does).

After I'm satisfied, I embellish the back of the dashboard with washi tape and stickers. Then I have the dashboard and marker laminated, punch holes, and insert them into my planner.

I've been having so much fun creating designs for dashboards I decided to open an Etsy shop and make them available for others. You can visit my store by simply clicking on the SHOP icon at the top of my blog page or by going to Etsy and searching for Jen's Whimsey. I currently have 4 designs available for a5 planners and if you click on the Promo Code banner at the top of my webpage you can get two designs for the price of one.