Teen Coloring Books

In Anatomy, we are working on a project called 20 Time. 20 Time is when you spend 20% of your time working on whatever inspires or motivates you, usually with an altruistic motive to give back to the community fueling the approach. It's used in big companies such as Google, where 20 Time projects gave way to bigger things. For example, on employee felt that the current mail system was too slow, so he created Gmail.


For my 20 Time project, I wanted to know different/healthy ways to reduce student stress. After researching the topic, I found out about coloring books that were tailored to adults, filled with intricate drawings of mandalas and other patterns. Although not described as form of art therapy, there was evidence showing how coloring reduced stress, increased focus, and led to an overall better sense of self. I decided that I wanted to draw my own coloring book and make it an in-between of an adult coloring book and a child's. I want to include the basic mandala designs inside of an outline that brings teens back to their childhood.
At the end of this project, I want to have the start of a coloring book, and I can do this by doing a creating page a week. If I continue to follow those outlines, then by the end of the project I should have the beginnings of a complete coloring book with about 14 pages inside of it.


Some challenges will be trying not to make the patterns in the book overly repetitive and coming up with new and interesting ways/ patterns to keep the audience occupied. Below is an example of a pattern that I want to try to draw sometime in the process :)