Art Therapy Colouring Book Review

So a while back I was in Galway browsing in Eason's and I stumbled across this little beauty! 

Art therapy is such a fantastic concept but I find it quite difficult to do unsupervised, I've tried it before in counselling sessions and I thought it was so relaxing but I had no idea how to recreate the process at home. I didn't know books like this even existed so I was delighted when I found in nestled in with a bunch of wedding planning guides (I have no idea how the book got in that section or how I wound up browsing there but I'm definitely glad we both ended up there!).

The idea is that the book comes full of illustrations of all different styles, shapes and sizes. Some of them are completely blank so you have free reign to chose your own colour scheme and some of them have sections already coloured in so if you want to follow that colour scheme you can.

There's a huge amount of variety in the pictures and styles, they range from tribal type patterns to nature based designs and more.

I decided to keep it super simple and use colouring pencils for my book but the pages are actually quite thick so I'd imagine you could get away with oil or chalk pastels, markers and possibly even paint. There are over a hundred pages altogether, all completely full to the brim of beautiful pictures. There's even a section at the back where you can just doodle, there's vague templates with large open spaces for you to do with as you please.

I'm in no way artistically talented but I am creative so this is the perfect outlet for me because it incorporates creativity without needing an ounce of skill on my part.

Overall I'd have to give this book a 10/10 because there isn't a single flaw, the illustrations are beautiful and straight forward and there's so much variation that you couldn't possibly ever get bored!

If you suffer with depression, anxiety, work or school related stress or anything along those lines, I'd highly recommend giving art therapy a try, whether it's a guided session with a professional or on your own terms with a book like this.

The Art Therapy Colouring Book is available to buy on Amazon (click here).

End Genocide In Gaza.

This is incredibly powerful. This is the sort of thing that puts conflict in far away places into context (especially for Irish people, specifically people who would've been affected by the Troubles and the following rumblings of violence and upset that continue to this day). It's easy to distance yourself from issues like what's currently going on in Gaza because it's not happening right under our noses or directly affecting us, I'm guilty of doing so myself. This however, this really hits home.

(not my photo, credit to whoever actually took it and major credit to whoever painted this.)

'I see you in colours that don't exist.'

- Paul Matsumoto

Pre-dawn Skies

Absolutely in love with this picture I took this morning. I was woken by thunder so I got up to let the dogs inside because they were freaking out. Snapped this around 5:15am just before I went back to bed, the sky was just gorgeous and the outline of the trees made it look even more magical.