Still Here, But Also Lazy

Y'all.

Netflix, a coloring book, and leftover soup. That's what I swept aside for this moment here, with you. Except I already ate the soup, so it was just the shows and coloring.

I don't know how people get enough doodling time to warrant all the adult coloring books I see for sale. Adult coloring books have tiny, fiddly designs - it takes forever to fill a page. So when are you doing them?

I went through a few different phases of coloring because initially I was under the impression that colored pencils were the only way to go. They look mature, like something an actual artist would use, so you can feel like you're doing something highbrow. But what I discovered is that I only get faint whispers of color if I hold the pencils naturally, so I ended up with a death grip claw hand and walked away feeling anxious and a bit sore, actually.

So then I tried crayons. Nostalgia factor, they smell great, they're satisfying to sharpen. But the colors end up under your nails and I still finished a coloring session looking like I was trying to do a bird shadow puppet or imitate the demonstration hand on the chopstick wrapper. This was not providing me with calm and relaxation!

My most groundbreaking coloring book discovery was the Crayola Pipsqueak Skinnies 64 pack. Markers = no reward for hand pressure. In fact, they force you to be quite deliberate and slow, which suits my desire for staying perfectly inside the lines. Which is also not relaxing, but is at least meditative. Downside? Terrible flesh tones, and very visible brushstrokes. I'm accepting the latter as a new stylistic choice (Markerism? Pipsqueakery?), but the former is still troubling. I will attach an example to demonstrate. The page is from The Official Outlander Coloring Book, a gift from my dear sister who knows my heart.

Now I have loved Jamie Fraser since I were a wee 15 yr old lass, but I haven't yet been able to bring myself to color a picture of him shirtless, let alone using colors such as 'Cheeks of a Virgin Watching Game of Thrones' or 'Ethnically Ambiguous Beige' or 'We Meant for This Color to Represent Mac n Cheese, Not Human Flesh'.  Maybe I need to invest in a broader palette of Pipsqueaks.