#ColoringTherapy Coloring For Your: Mind, Body and Spirit

By A.J. Bruner

#ColoringTherapy helps to guide the reader through the mental process of coloring. Not merely for childhood playtime, coloring in your adult life can provide time to re-focus your mind and spirit. It can help with fine motor skills and improve numerous brain functions. Coloring may also provide an outlet to grieve.As your begin the journey into adult coloring, along the path you should gain some additional knowledge about coloring and how it is different now than it was as a child. Learn about materials and how to select media and medium types as they pertain to colored pencils. Enjoy the conversational tone of the book, filled with both instructions and suggestions, including anecdotes from the author's life and how they relate to coloring. Helping the reader to see how they can relate to coloring and in turn, allow the benefits from the finer points of coloring to blend into their lives. Includes the addendum Tie-Dye Therapy: Explore the art of tie-dye and how it relates to coloring. Plus learn techniques and suggestions, as well as seeing color images of works completed by the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A.J. Bruner
• Release date: Apr 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463597187

A.J. Bruner

A.J. grew up in a small town in Indiana. His paternal grandparents lived just south of Detroit and he would spend time there now and again. On the opposite side of the curve, his maternal grandparents lived in "small town, USA". He would often use his imagination to occupy his time. During Junior High he discovered the writings of Margret Weis, Laura and Tracy Hickman and Stephen King. Weis and the Hickmans would paint outlandish fantasy tales about dragons, wizards and elves and on the other side Stephen King would take him to a dark place where things went bump in the night. It wasn't long after this that he began to write his own short stories. It wasn't until he sat down and focused on one topic that he was able to bring readers the first book in the Soul Mates series; Perceptions Of Love. More works have since followed, including Legends of Dragons, which is A.J.'s first trip into fantasy writing of a different kind.

Book preview

#ColoringTherapy

Coloring for your: mind, body and spirit

by

J. Bruner

Copyright© 2018 A. J. Bruner

Published by A. J. Bruner at Smashwords

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9780463597187

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook.

This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer.

This is a work of Nonfiction. However: Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Thank you for your support

Dedication

For those that have lost…

For those that will have lost…

For those wading in darkness…

For those that want to spread some light…

And

Mothers; for all that I have learned from each of you.

Special Thanks:

Ann – For your input and time, as well as for your encouragement.

preface

When the word coloring is mentioned, those that read or hear it often think of an activity they may have done in their youth, a childhood activity. I am here to explain to you that coloring is far beyond that label of being a childhood activity. That is why this book exists.

In fact, coloring has transferred into an adult activity in this current climate of human evolution. Any location that sells books, likely has at least one version of an adult coloring book. These are usually more complex than most marked for children. Really it does not matter which type of book that you use, because the activity is the key to the whole experience and to unlocking numerous benefits. That is why this book exists.

Throughout the ages playing is one skill that humans have excelled in all around. In the animal kingdom, playing is how youngsters are taught important life lessons, like stalking prey, hiding, flying, etc., etc. Coloring is often considered a playing activity and it is, but what it is not is a useless playful activity. That is why this book exists.

My own personal journey down the path of coloring has been met with many detours and even destruction in the process. Looking back as I retrace my coloring steps, my hope is that I can provide some insight into something in your life, dear reader, that connects to coloring and thereby help more folks through #ColoringTherapy. That is why this book exists.

J. Bruner

Pinellas Park, 2018

Acknowledgement

Since this book is about coloring, it made sense to include some art to color and for reference. Fate intervened when a mutual friend introduced me to Indi Martin of Tortoise & Hare Creations and I knew. Her works are dramatically attractive and incredibly satisfying to color as well. However, her stunning talents do not stop at beautiful, graphic art…

In 2011, Indi Martin became a founding member of Tortoise & Hare Creations, into which she could pour her creative heartblood and - through alchemical equations and dark, rum-based magic - produce stunning projects. Indi is best known for penning the Gina Harwood novels, a series often described as X-Files meets Call of Cthulhu, as well as Dissolution: A Graphic Novel, a mature-content, experimental graphic serial. Indi has supplied paintings for multiple roleplaying supplements, including the Veranthea Codex, Hypercorps 2099: Wasteland, the Book of Passion and the Book of Exalted Darkness, as well as several video games including The Dark Unknown and Sylph: Project Miyaji. She also has completed several pieces for bands including Baron von Swagger, Sovereign Dame, and most recently the vinyl cover for RECAP's Pronoia. Additionally, she offers her original and fan art prints as well as commissions online and at conventions.

Thank you for your incredible art, Indi.

Table of Contents

Dedication

preface

Acknowledgement

Chapter 1: First there was darkness

Then there was color

Then came purpose

Then the fun began

Then things felt different

Then came the impact

Then boredom set in

Then the borders fell

Then the basics were found

Then things were on the rebound

Then came the shopping list

Then came the weight

Chapter 2: I have a plan...

Then came the instruction

then there were holes

then the greatness of great

then it was time for mixing

then it was all about technique

Then things began to dissolve

Then everything seemed so complex

Then there must be a break

Chapter 3: Okay, great. Now what?

Goals, schmoals, cinnamon rolls

Selling your sou...talent

Answers are blowin’ in the winds of change

warped in a dream

analyze these apples

Self-loafing: buttering the other side

On with the story

Don’t step on my memory

Do you recall what I recall

So, what do I know

Have apples; everyone else has oranges

The agony of…mother-loving humiliation

When is enough, too much

You may ask yourself

Well, how did I get here

Back to coloring

Letting the days go by

Let the water hold me down

Letting the days go by

Water flowing underground

Words have color as well

Chapter 4: building your path

Gathering the materials

Do you see what I see

How do you see what I do not see

Welcome to the software store

Approaching the cashier check-out

Addendum: tie-dye therapy

Okay, so what is the deal

Much ado about techniques

So how do I make?

About the tie-dye art

For coloring

Connect with indi martin

Connect with a.j. bruner

Works cited

Chapter 1: First there was darkness…

Every story needs a beginning.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of time…"

-Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)

"Once upon a midnight dreary…"

-Edgar Allen Poe (The Raven)

"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken…"

-Harper Lee (To Kill A Mockingbird)

So how does this story begin? Sadly, with: Every story needs a beginning., but I have good news in that it does get better from this point forward. Well, one would surely hope, or else we have wasted one another’s time. If that is the case, I hope that does not steer you away from coloring.

Now that I have provided an escape clause for all of you that read this material, allow me to continue with the rest of the story and explain why I am writing these words in these configurations.

Firstly, I need to pop inside your head for a moment, scramble some things around and re-introduce you to the term community. Today, mostly we think of community as clusters of houses, or some social media group with members (or an entire website), but really those are an extension of what community is: like-minded individuals coming together over a commonality.

It is the coming together part that is most important. In understanding each other, we understand more about ourselves, as a single entity.

Now go outside and hug a tree.

I realize that many of the concepts and ideas I offer, may sound like I have hugged too many trees (maybe smoked leaves of a wrong kind or another too?) and I am okay with that. Not that I consider myself a leader, but in a situation where something is holding a person back, sometimes it is helpful to see someone standing out front.

That seems awfully heavy for talking about coloring, man. I know, but we will get to all that before the final pages. As you are reading this book or even after you finish it and go on with your life, any time you take the time to color, you are part of a group of like-minded individuals, or a community. This community is here to help others, through coloring in many forms.

Then there was color…

For my particular coloring projects, I have used colored pencils, but I also work with tie-dye artwork too. Crayons and possibly colored pencils populate a large majority of impulse sections in retail stores, especially franchise stores such as various convenience shops and mini-mall boutiques. As an older adult, possibly even as a parent of several years or a brand new one, you might consider coloring to be merely a childhood activity. Something meant to pine away the hours indoors, because it was raining