If you want to learn how to design adult coloring books, you have to know what materials your buyers will use when they color inside your book. Understanding the materials helps you make better choices about your design and the spaces that you create for your customers to fill!
In this post, I’ll dive into the most popular coloring materials and talk about ways designers can create their own coloring books with each material in mind.
coloring book pages
For all of these examples I’ll be coloring inside my Art Nouveau Coloring Book which I show how I created inside my Create and Sell an Artist Designed Coloring Book class, but of course you could try out these materials on any coloring book you buy online or at a local bookstore.
colored pencils
Colored pencils are the easiest materials for beginners to use, so a lot of adult colorers who are just getting started will use these. One of the biggest benefits of this material is that it’s easy to blend and keep inside the lines. This makes it super fun for beginners and advanced colors because they can use large open spaces to create multicolor effects or even rainbow/prism gradients.
Designers Note: This is a great reason to include some wide open spaces for your colorers to use. They don’t necessarily need tiny closed spaces, and would rather have some large open areas where they can express themselves.
Acrylic Paint Markers
This is a material that allows your colorers to get messy and to even color over your original outlines. You can layer light and dark colors, add highlights and shadow, and layer colors. You can even “paint” over the original color with a new one if you don’t like your original choice!
Designer’s Note: Sometimes your colorers will completely cover your outlines, so it’s important to consider the beauty of the negative space in your artwork as much as the positive space. The negative space is all of the area around your shapes (in this case it’s the area behind my tree). Beautiful negative spaces are just as powerful as the artwork itself.
Alcohol markers
These are currently the most trending coloring material on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where adult coloring influencers share their process. Part of their popularity is because of the bold sleek color they create, and their ability to blend and create gradients.
Designer’s Note: this is a good time to go to Instagram and TikTok and search adult coloring process videos. Notice how the bold colors that your customers will use can make your pages stand out. As you design your pages, consider where these bold pops of color might land (like florals and wings in this case) and how they are dispersed throughout the artwork.
metallic markers
These are one of my personal favorites because with just a few drops of metallic ink you can add a ton of beauty to a page. Adult colorers often use metallic markers or pens as a final touch on an artwork that began with a different material like colored pencils. So metallics often end up as tiny pops of shimmer rather than an overall color.
Designer’s Note: As you design your pages, consider including a few designs that have some spaces that would be perfect for metallics like stars, berries, dots, or other light/fire related objects.
other materials
Of course, there are many other materials that people use for adult coloring, like pastels, watercolor, crayons, and a whole host of other materials. I think that the ones on this list covered the basics that designers need to understand to create a beautiful coloring book though!
Designer’s Note: The most important step for getting started with adult coloring is to become an adult colorer. If you don’t spend time coloring, how will you ever know what colorers want? Go get your favorite books and materials now and start playing and planning your first coloring book!
If you don’t already have a coloring book, consider starting with my Art Nouveau Coloring Book that I created to celebrate the flora and fauna of the Art Nouveau era.
Come design a coloring book with me!
I share my whole process for designing coloring books inside this class where you’ll go from coloring book lover to coloring book designer!
