Create Your Own Adult Coloring Book
From a young age, coloring books are utilized as a quiet activity for children, usually so parents and teachers can gain some semblance of peace. Did you know there is a reason this is such a good activity for kids? Coloring has the ability to relax the fear center of your brain. This is the same state you can achieve by meditating - it’s just an easier and more fun avenue to get there.
Not only does coloring help anxiety and release stress, but it also improves fine motor skills, focus, and can even help you get a better night's sleep when you swap electronics for a coloring book. Because of these benefits, coloring is no longer limited to kindergarten.
What Can You Turn Into an Adult Coloring Book?
With BeFunky’s Designer, you can easily create coloring pages from memorable photos or paintings, and the plus side is it is a cheaper alternative to the coloring book craze that is sweeping book stores. Graphics and Artsy effects (in the Photo Editor) will help you achieve this look. Before we learn how to do this, let’s look at some examples of pieces that you can turn into coloring pages.
Photos
Family photos are a fun coloring project because it is personal and you can also create a pretty cool piece of art for your home. Other options could include photos of your animals or simply a photo you took of the outdoors.
Coloring photos like this can provide cute and unusual gifts for loved ones, or art pieces you want to hang in your home. If you give your little one the reins, they can create some amazing pieces that are perfect for the grandparents.
Artwork
Using artwork such as paintings or collages are a great way to create sharp coloring book pages.
These can be fun because you can put your own twist on a piece and also have some inspiration to work off of.
Patterns
If you are having a hard time finding the right photo or art piece, try choosing a pattern or making one of your own from BeFunky’s Graphic elements.
This is a super simple way to create a coloring book page and there are also thousands of graphic elements to choose from. Try creating themed pages for a holiday or even using a coloring page on the back of an invitation or postcard for your friends to enjoy.
How to Create a Coloring Book Page
To begin, open BeFunky’s Graphic Designer by clicking here. Choose the size you want for your artwork from the templates provided. We are going to create a postcard-sized coloring page for a graffiti image.
Step 2: Add Your Image
Select the photo you want from the Image Manager. You can either upload your own personal photo or select from the thousands of stock images by clicking Search Stock Images.
From Image Manager, add the image to your canvas by double-clicking the image or dragging and dropping it directly onto your canvas. Resize your image by dragging outwards on the corners - you want to align the image to the edges of the canvas. You can also right-click and select Fit to Canvas or Fill Canvas.
Step 3: Apply an Effect to Create Colorable Sections
We are going to edit the photo directly in Photo Editor while remaining in our Graphic Designer workspace. With your photo selected, press the Edit Image button that appears in the left-hand menu. This will open the photo in Photo Editor, while keeping your graphic project as a working file - it’s a pretty cool feature!
We are going to select Artsy from the left-hand menu. From here, select Mosaic. There are many options to play around with that would work for creating a coloring book page, but Mosaic and Poly Art work best for our purposes. It will break up our image into easy sections to color in.
After you select Mosaic, click the Apply button (check mark) to apply the photo filter.
Step 4: Remove the Color From Your Image
Now, we need to remove the color – because what fun is a coloring book that's already colored in? Head back to the Edit tab at the top of the left-hand menu. Select Color. You want to bring the Saturation down to zero by dragging the slider all the way to the left. Select Apply. You can also apply a B&W effect to achieve this result.
Head back into the Edit tab and scroll to the bottom until you see the Levels option; select this. You are going to adjust each of these sliders: Min Input, Gamma, Max Input, Min Output, Max Output. I adjust these until I get a sharp shadow line, with the medium and highlights blown out. Start with your settings as seen in the photo and then adjust depending on what your photo needs. When you are finished, select Apply.
After you have your image how you want it, head back to the Graphic Designer by selecting Done Editing Image.
Step 5: Save Your New Coloring Book Page
Once you are here, select Save and then choose your file type. You can do JPEG or PDF for easy printing.
Creating Coloring Books Is Easy!
Coloring books have so many benefits for kids and adults. With BeFunky’s Graphic Designer, you can create a single coloring sheet or create multiple in order to turn it into an entire book that you can print and bind and take with you wherever you go. Not only are these coloring sheets fun, but they also help with stress and anxiety! Give them a go and see what creative pieces you can create.
