COLOUR YOUR WA Y TO INNER PEACE
It might sound unlikely, but millions of adults are finding solace during troubled times by filling in Johanna Basford’s stunning illustrations
MINDFULNESS is a buzzword we encountered with increasing regularity last year as the pandemic caused anxiety levels to rocket. Stressed home workers and homeschoolers sought calming activities and retailers reported a boom in vintage pastimes such as jigsaws and board games.
But a more recent trend, adult colouring books, also enjoyed a massive resurgence – just five years after its initial popularity caused a global pencil shortage.
Illustrator Johanna Basford, the undisputed queen of the adult colouring books phenomenon with more than 21 million sales to her name, is not remotely surprised.
Scores of exhausted healthcare professionals got in touch during the past 12 months to tell her how it kept them sane during their darkest periods. Doctors, nurses, call handlers, health visitors and reception staff all found solace in the quiet, personal act of colouring.
“It was a humbling experience,” says Johanna, 37, from Aberdeenshire, whose best friend is a nurse. “The pressure put on them over the past year has been crazy.”
She believes many turned to the therapeutic effects of felt tips and pencils to escape the Covid fear and uncertainty that kept popping up on our screens.
“It’s been scary so we’ve felt like we needed respite,” she continues. “Many of us couldn’t get into a flow of concentration because of being constantly interrupted by the pings on our phones.The fact that colouring is an analogue activity was important.”
IT WOULD seem even busy royal mumof-three Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, is a fan, as Prince William confided to Johanna as he awarded her with an OBE at Buckingham Palace in 2016.
“When you boil it down she’s just another working mum albeit in different circumstances,” Johanna says. “There are a few things in life that pin us together and creativity is one of them.”
Johanna helped spawn the adult colouring craze in 2013 when she published her first book, The Secret Garden. It came about after commercial clients for her illustrations told her they loved filling in her intricate blackand-white prints.
Her designs, typically centred around nature scenes, are sophisticated and elegant but easy to colour.
“It’s an accessible way to flex those creativity muscles again because the outlines are all there,” Johanna says. “You just have to bring the colour, you don’t need any specialist equipment and there’s no scary blank sheet of paper.”
Her newest book, Worlds Of Wonder, is full of imagined realms – think castles, treetops and floating cities.
“I’m not normally drawn to architecture but it’s got the whimsical botanical twist that makes my artwork quite recognisable,” she says. Her ideas were created almost entirely during the pandemic. “It was a response to being stuck at home and not able to go anywhere and being surrounded by two small children most of the day.”
Johanna became a single mum in the pandemic after splitting from her husband, James Watt, the co-founder of multi-millionaire craft beer company Brewdog. It left her shouldering the burden of homeschooling her two daughters Evie, six, and Mia, four, alone.
So she is keen to highlight the importance of maintaining good mental health while navigating single parenthood and the pressures of work.
“It boils down to selfcare and is like putting your oxygen mask on first,” she says. “If we’re not looking after ourselves and taking time to pause from the hurly-burly of whatever’s going on that day, then we’re not able to function. I definitely cannot function as a parent or a home-schooler if we’re all at the end of our tether.”
She has a “mixed relationship” with social media.
“I definitely see the dark side of it,” she says. “But I can also fully appreciate how wonderful it is. When you make something you want to instinctively show it. Sites like Instagram and Facebook allow you to do that. That’s a huge part of the creative process.”
Part of the joy of colouring is what Johanna calls the “Peter Pan effect”. She says: “Getting your pens and pencils out again encourages you to pause, and whisks you back to a mindset that you would have had in more carefree days.
“It’s about the tactile feel of the paper, sharpening your pencils, and the lovely smell of the cedar wood as you sharpen them. It’s an immersive experience.”
A former commercial illustrator for brands including Nike, Starbucks and Absolut Vodka, Johanna is not keen on colouring apps for that reason, despite receiving a lucrative opportunity to create her own. She recalls a specific conversation with an app designer that unsettled her.
“I asked if we could include a reminder after 15 minutes to say, ‘Well, that’s you for the day and why not go and find a real colouring book now?’ He looked aghast and said, ‘No, the idea is to keep them on there as long as possible, to have all these different subscription models so that our payment keeps coming in.’ It just didn’t feel right to me.”
Now her financial stability allows her to pick and choose her projects. Her biggest book markets are in the US and UK, followed by Brazil, but she is big in South Korea too. Each book takes between nine months and a year to complete.
Johanna starts with thumbnail sketches and leaves voice notes to herself such as “goldfish pool in a bottle with three toadstools in it” while out walking her dog. They are decoded when she gets to her studio where she scales everything up to full size and redraws it in pen. “It’s then I add the fancy bits and intri
‘Getting your pens and pencils out whisks you back to a mindset you had in more carefree days’
cate details that capture your curiosity such as hidden keys and rogue butterflies,” she says.
A computer is used only as a finishing tool for symmetrical or repeated patterns. “I like that the circles are a bit wonky or there’s a bit of a wobble where I’ve sneezed when I’m drawing,” she explains.
Johanna knows people may pack away their pens once the lockdown finally finishes but says that’s OK. “It’s not one of those hobbies that if you take a break from it then you’re back to square one,” she says.
“It’s so easy breezy – you can dip in and out, and your book will happily sit on a bookshelf until you come back to it.”
●●Worlds of Wonder: A Colouring Book for the Curious by Johanna Basford (Virgin Books, £14.99) is published on April 1. To pre-order with free UK delivery, call Express Bookshop on 01872 562310 or order via www.expressbookshop. co.uk