My colouring-in books help adults escape digital life, says illustrator
Artist tells how her idea has tapped into a desire for simple pleasures – and created a pencil shortage
‘You are not going to get interrupted by Twitter and there is also a childhood nostalgia element to it’
HER “colouring-in” books for adults became a surprise success, tapping into a huge demand for grown-ups seeking to switch off from mobiles and iPads to simpler pleasures.
Now, having topped Amazon’s bestsellers lists, Johanna Basford’s books are also boosting global sales for highquality pencils, as fans buy the best possible tools for their masterpieces.
Pencil makers are struggling to cope, with Faber-Castell, the world’s largest wood pencil manufacturer, revealing it is running extra shifts at its factories.
“People like colouring-in because they are fed up with digital,” Ms Basford, 32, told The Sunday Telegraph. “There is something nice about picking up a pencil and a pen. You are not going to get interrupted by Twitter, and there is also a childhood nostalgia element to it. The last time you did a bit of colouring in, you probably weren’t thinking about a mortgage or Brexit.”
Rather like other recent middle-class crazes such as allotments, ukelele playing, home-brewing and baking, colouring-in appeals to nostalgia for a simpler, analogue era. And while it might be healthier than tucking into a homemade sponge inspired by The Great
British Bake Off, there is still an element of a guilty pleasure to it.
But not everyone approves. Leading the chorus of disapproval is the comedian Russell Brand, with a recent skit called Adult Colouring Books: Is This the Apocalypse? “What has turned us into terrified divs that want to live in childish stupors?” he raged, accusing colouring-in fans of being scared of the modern world.
Ms Basford calls herself an “ink evangelist who prefers pens and pencils to pixels” but even her own publishers had doubts when she had the idea five years ago. The Aberdeenshire-based artist was a commercial illustrator, doing hand drawings for firms including champagne and perfume brands.
“I used to do all my work in black and white, and some of my clients used to joke about how they would like to take them home and colour them in,” she said. “I was then asked to do a children’s colouring book, and I said, ‘How about doing an adults’ one as well?’. They were a bit tentative, but eventually they went for it, and printed 13,000 copies that sold out within a few weeks.”
Her first three books of drawings – which can take three days to produce – have sold 16million copies worldwide, with three million in China alone. Magical Jungle will generate a buzz worthy of a major novel when it comes out in April and her work is generating all sorts of spinoffs. There are now colouring books for fans of Game of Thrones, Sherlock
Holmes and Dr Who, a Tattoo Colouring Book – and even a Corbyn Colouring Book with the Labour leader as a football star, the Mona Lisa, and Moses parting the Red Sea.
Colouring-in clubs have formed worldwide, with members meeting in cafés to compare efforts.
Ms Basford added: “I get messages from people in New Zealand and Australia saying there are big [pencil] shortages. It’s really nice that something I was passionate about is now shared worldwide.” And detractors like Mr Brand? “Maybe he just hasn’t found the right colouring-in book yet.”