This Coloring Book Understands Your Feelings

I promised myself that as soon as the adult coloring book Around the World with the Googly Gooeys hits bookstores, I’ll be doing a blog post about its lighter side–it being a silly & a talkative 60-page activity-filled title just like its owners. 😀

Around the World with the Googly Gooeys has been released last Christmas and I still can’t believe how I had to sit down for three months with Riley inside my tummy not knowing whether I should be afraid about how my life will change as a new parent or my book deadline.  Haha.

Well, here’s a confession: if you’ve been wondering how I managed to color all those pages as soon as I gave birth, well, I didn’t.  I did most of them before I met Riley! Haha.

This is our new family picture by the way. Hehehe. Clay figures are courtesy of Al Estrella by the way. 🙂

I clearly remember how, hormonal & teary eyed I was as I was writing the words on this page.  Hahahaha.  I didn’t even share this fact with the hubby because he always laughs at me when I cry…even in movies. :P

I was in the hospital bed & this was my first post–a shot of the same page with Riley’s shoes but without chubby hands.  36 hours after giving birth, I checked my phone for the first time & I was hoping to update my Instagram. *What was I thinking???*  I could barely review the caption I wrote & I actually fell asleep in between the process of uploading. Hehe.

Anyway, fast forward to almost 7 months later, here we are with a 21 pound baby and it’s getting more challenging to take a glimpse of his hand without him grabbing the page or the nearest pen. 😀

*Oops for the lengthy intro.*
Well, doodles, graphics and birthing tales aside, let’s go back to why this coloring book understands your feelings:

1. It understands your love for chicharon. *Why do I have to type this at 4am?  Now I don’t know if I’m supposed to be sad or happy there is no chicharon in this house.*

2. It understands your need to be frank about your emotions.  It also totally gets your need to repeat vowels and consonants aside from the use of multiple punctuation marks (to the dismay of the grammar police).
3. It gets your stress points. Do I have to explain myself all the time???  Enough said.
4. It won’t judge you if you still haven’t moved on.  Is the culprit a recent breakup or a plot that didn’t end the way you wanted it to be?  *Speaking of, it took me years to get over the ending of 500 days of Summer. :D* Lines like “Numbed by my previous love, I am incapable of feeling anything.” or “everything reminds me of my ex” exist in this coloring book.
5. It understands your true feelings about food and your need to travel without ever leaving your seat.  Is it your workload or the horrendous traffic in the city? :O Reminisce past travels & create your bucket list by coloring in some pages.
6. It knows about your need to find yourself.  Quarter-life crisis?  Mid-life crisis? Searching for your identity? There is an option in the multiple choice section that says “Confused about my existence & life in general”.  Underline, encircle, box or highlight that option if you have to.  Well, whatever makes you happy.  Breathe & smile once you’ve done so. 😀

7. It knows about the existence of your secret self–a.k.a. alter ego.  One of the first few pages of the book lets you fill in your nickname, the name of your fictional self, make-believe hometown & secret superpower just in case you’re ready to reveal it on paper. 🙂

8. It understands your need for companionship.  It has activity sheets meant for analog player A & B as well as coloring spreads so you can assign one page to each person.  Speaking of companionship, perhaps giving your dog a Pitt Brush Pen or a Polychromos colored pencil isn’t a very good idea. 😀

9. It understands your love for Teal.  When we hold workshops, people always go for the teal tote bag and the teal notebook.  When I have to buy acrylic, teal is always out of stock. When I do a watercolor demo, people always ask how you can make teal from scratch.  We get it.  So there: we have teal on both pages of the cover and you also have sixty pages for you to color with teal.  *I’m guilty of using that color on every page too. Oops.*
10. It knows how you tend to effortlessly digress & interrupt yourself.  How not to get lost in my side comments is a life skill I have yet to learn. Uh huh.
#TheStruggleIsReal
#OverusedHashtag

If you don’t have a copy of this coloring book yet, you may get it from your nearest friendly-neighborhood National Bookstore and Powerbooks branches.  You may also order it online by filling out the form at the end of this post!  🙂

Related Posts:
Coloring Book Hits Bookstores This Week
Travel Coloring Book: Around the World with the Googly Gooeys
5 Tips When Using Colored Pencils

P.S. Just in case you’re wondering, I used Faber-Castell Pitt Pens for most of the pages in this book.  Pitt Pens are available in selected branches of National Bookstore, all branches of Scribe & CraftCarrot.com 🙂  It has a brush tip so you can cover larger areas by tilting your pen & pressing it down or tight areas by barely touching the paper.  It’s also acid & odor-free.  Learn more about how to use Pitt Pens on your coloring books here.

Also, if you’re like me and you love abusing maximizing your art materials and you find that the tip is no longer as sharp as it used to be, I learned from a friend that you can actually pull out the tip & reverse it and ta-dahhhh, it’s like you have a new pen allover again! 🙂

Well, those are 10 reasons why Around the World with the Googly Gooeys is irreverent to the usual coloring book format & an empathic one at that. 😀

Okay.  I may have had too much fun planning for and shooting this post.  Thank you Sitraxis for all your help today and going through all the shoot lay-outs with me! 🙂

XOXO,

Tippy 😀

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How to Make Your Colors Vibrant
How to Choose Colors for Your Artwork
How to Paint on Your Denim
Ultimate Art Jam with Faber-Castell & Dong-A