colouring books... yes or no?

Have you got caught up in the colouring book craze?

Last winter I found Joanne Basford's colouring book Enchanted Garden.   

I originally bought it to attempt to learn her drawing style. 

I love drawing leaves and trees, flowers and mushrooms, so I happily spent hours attempting her designs in my sketch book.  I never put a crayon or marker in that book. 

For me, it was a reference book .

my attempt at drawing from the Secret Garden colouring book

my drawings in Joanna Basford's style

Then along came her book, Enchanted Forest and I ordered it from Amazon but before it arrived I was gifted a copy.    So now I had 2 copies and I gave myself permission to colour in one of them.  I had a much neglected set of Prismacolor colour pencils so I dug them out and sharpened them up.

The whole colouring book craze seemed to explode. 

Soon my Pinterest  started featuring tutorials on how to colour,

how to blend, what pens to use and Facebook groups devoted

to colouring started up.

I bought more colouring books, bought some fine line markers that wouldn't bleed through the pages and my Prismacolor pencils got shorter and shorter. 

I could color in front of the TV and soon had my self a little colouring book nest around my chair. 

Colouring book page

I enjoyed all that colouring but I noticed that I stopped drawing,

stopped painting and stopped journaling. 

  

For me, colouring is easy but drawing isn't. 

Colouring book page

I  need to work at drawing and painting everyday or I forget how. 

So now put my coloured pencils and markers away and packed up my colouring books.

I'm worried that I will never paint again if I continue to colour in my colouring books. 

colouring book page

What do you think? 

Have you jumped on the colouring book band wagon and

if you are a painter or drawer have you found that it sapped your creative energy? 

Or should I not worry about that and just enjoy the fact that I was doing something that I enjoyed.

Leave me a comment about your colouring experience.

Artfully Yours,

Lori