Fresh Crayola markers, where the tips are sharp, the color is bright, and the ink flows out smoothly, is one of life's greatest joys. There's little more satisfying in the world than sitting down with a coloring book page armed with a new bold, red marker, ready to fill in between the lines.
I colored in a rose today in my USIE facilitator class (as a "microteaching" exercise for one of the other facilitators and her class on the Psychology of Arts & Crafts) and I must admit that I was pretty proud of it, all things considered. I drew it with a little bit of artistic depth; the petals had a yellow lining while the inside of the petals were red and the purple stem grew blue AND purple leaves. Beat that, "Beauty and the Beast!" You don't even understand what a REAL rose is until you've seen one with a purple stem!
Anyway, the point of the exercise was not exactly to gain a sense of base-level satisfaction at the minute accomplishment of just coloring something in between the lines (we led into a discussion of how gender roles/creativity are defined by what we choose to color, how we color it, in what colors, etc.), but there was a sense of calm and relaxation that I experienced when coloring. Maybe it was just the fact that I was doing something so mind-numblingly simple yet so undeniably relaxing that made the exercise stand out in my mind. I'm not even a very good colorer (I manage to always get outside the lines SOMEHOW), but with only the goal of filling in something and trying to make it "pretty," I felt completely at ease and I left class feeling oddly energized.
Maybe a trip to the arts & crafts section of the pharmacy down in Westwood is in order. There are some great Disney princess coloring book pages online. I think Cinderella would look rad with some pink hair.
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