“You know you’ve gone back to a second childhood when you….” How would you complete this sentence? These days, I finish the statement with “…open an adult colouring book and get to work.”

Adult colouring books have taken the world by storm. Why are we so enamoured of them?

Tom Roston, a blogger, explains it this way, “Anyone who has appreciated a meditative mental drift while knitting or mowing a lawn knows that there is something calming about engaging in a familiar, low-impact activity that requires minimal thought and bestows a clear sense of progress.”

Visual artist and children’s writer Dawn Baker has sharpened her pencil to produce a book of “line drawings ideal for colouring.”

She knows a thing or two about writing and illustrating, for over 80,000 of her books are in print! Each is known for its bold, eye-catching colours.

In her latest work, Colouring Newfoundland and Labrador, she depicts “images that represent our people and culture.”

It might be a moose, an inukshuk and Northern Lights, a homemade jam, a view of the Rooms, capelin rolling, a button accordion, Jellybean Row, or Purity products.

The colourer will be entranced by the seventy-six scenes represented.

Baker admits that “it was quite a challenge to adapt to a method that stopped short of adding any colour whatsoever.” But she has succeeded admirably.

She started each page with a pencil outline, which she adjusted until it looked realistic. Then, she “completed the illustration by using a variety of sizes of pigment liners.”

In an amusing twist, Baker herself is eager to “finally fill the images with the bold hues for which our province is famous.”

Whether it be with coloured pencils, pastels, markers or watercolours, the final product is left entirely to the imagination of the colourer.

Which reminds me, I need to sharpen several of my coloured pencils.

Colouring Newfoundland and Labrador is published by Flanker Press of St. John’s.