wherein Liz has fun with coloring books

[edenfalling]

I ran out of sewing projects (or more accurately, I ran out of patience for sewing projects), so I have started using coloring books as the focus aid that lets me actually listen to podcasts instead of losing concentration about two minutes in.

I'm currently working through a set of geometric stained glass patterns, from a book by an A. G. Smith. I've finished seven and have seven still to go, which is at least three hours of listening time. Then I have a proper paper coloring book -- also geometric patterns -- which I think will be a colored pencil task rather than a marker task.

Anyway, I am going to share the colored pictures with the internet so I don't feel quite so much like I've been wasting my time with them. *wry*


1.


2.


3.


4.


5.


6.


7.


As you can see, I got a little better about even color application over time. (Also, I uploaded these to imgur rather than to tumblr, which means that the links should remain stable instead of breaking the next time tumblr staff decide to 'upgrade' their site.)

Comments

[heliopausa]

Oh! I've just failed at loading a picture from imgur! But you are proof it can be done. :) I'll give it another try.

[edenfalling]

I don't know why you have such trouble getting html to work on Dreamwidth. It's very strange. :-(

But imgur will tell you how to make an html link to any given image if you open that image in its own page; you just have to copypaste the relevant code from the far right column. Good luck!

[heliopausa]

I did!
Or tried to. Maybe I'm choosing the wrong "relevant code"? They give several, for different uses - which would you suggest?

[edenfalling]

I use the one that says "HTML (website / blogs)" -- the relevant code is right below the identifier. Of course, I also use the plain html interface on Dreamwidth, but I think the code should still work even if you're using a rich text interface, at least if you format the thing as a link. (I don't know how rich text interfaces handle images on their own.)

For instance, the code imgur provides for the last image in this post is <a href="http://imgur.com/q1LJBw5"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/q1LJBw5.jpg?1" title="source: imgur.com" /></a>

That not only posts the image; it turns the copy of the image on my journal into an active link back to the version of the image on imgur. If you don't want that to happen, I'd strip out the <a href="your_image_URL"> and </a> parts and leave only the <img src="direct_image_URL" /> part. You can also take out the title="source: imgur.com" part with no ill effect, which I generally do. If you want to get fancy, you can force the image to display at a chosen size by including width="###" height="###" where the 'title' part currently is (just replace the hashtags with actual digits), and add an alt description which will show up if the link breaks, like so -- alt="description goes here" -- which usually comes after the height and width parts. (I think alt descriptions are also relevant to people who use screen readers, but I wouldn't swear to that.)

Disclaimer: I am not a programmer and my html knowledge is a patchy jumble that I picked up here and there on an as-needed basis, so I cannot tell you how any of the code operates, nor why it sometimes fails to work.

[heliopausa]

Thank you very much! I've tried that - it doesn't seem to be working, though. Can you give it a quick look, just to confirm that it looks as if it should work, but doesn't?

[edenfalling]

All I see in your post is the raw code. :-(

This is particularly weird because when I copied that exact code, the image displayed just fine here in my comment preview. I've chopped it down a little now (width 245 and height 200) because it was coming out HUGE, but it's still showing up just fine.



I remember you've had trouble getting people's journals to display correctly in the past. Do you perhaps have some kind of browser add-on that interferes with your access to Dreamwidth? Or maybe there's a glitch in your DW theme? Because so far as I can tell, you're doing everything right and producing bafflingly wrong results. Maybe you should enter a support ticket! Either there is a bug that can and should be fixed, or the support staff will be able to troubleshoot for you a lot more effectively and knowledgeably than I can.

[heliopausa]

Thank you very much! I had thought I'd cut it down inside imgur, but evidently not effectively.

I'll try the whole thing again after NFE, and yes, ask for actual DW staff support. In the meantime, can I put in a link to here? along the lines of "If you want to see what the kedgeree looked like..."

Thank you again - I really appreciate your taking the time.

[edenfalling]

I posted the image (a bit larger, for better visibility) as a comment under your own post where it will be easier to find. :-)

[heliopausa]

Thank you!! You're very kind!! :)

[autumnia]

Coloring books are the current trend these days -- have you seen some of the "adult" coloring books that are on sale now? Lovely bits of flora, fauna and what have you. I'm almost tempted to buy one but that would require me to go buy a box of pencils as well since I gave most of my art supplies away.

At least you didn't stray outside the lines! :-)

[edenfalling]

Well, I purchased a bunch of art supplies over the past few years because of a Homestuck story I have... uh... not been writing lately, so I am well-supplied with coloring materials. I might buy another book, though, because geometric patterns (much as I love them) do get old after a while, and if I could find something with, say, art nouveau plants, that would be great fun to work with.

I respect others' right to color as they please, but coloring outside the lines is one of the things that makes my soul wince. I like being tidy. :-)

[autumnia]

You should check out "Secret Garden", by Johanna Basford which started the recent craze. I think my office had one of her more recent coloring books in the free pile at one time and now I'm regretting that I didn't pick it up.

I'm a neatnik when coloring... I can't stand it when people go outside the lines and always want to reach for an eraser when I see it happening. :-)

[edenfalling]

That is very pretty! But it looks a little too intricate and fussy for my purposes, since I am using coloring as a focus aid rather than an activity in and of itself. Relatively large and simple 'blocks' of area-to-color let me occupy my hands and eyes while leaving my actual attention on whatever I'm listening to.

(If I don't have a nonverbal hand-and-eye activity, I cannot focus on audio-only input worth beans. I drift off after maybe five minutes maximum, and retain very little from the experience since most of my attention is fixed on trying to pay attention instead of on the actual content of the audio.)

[marmota_b]

I'm becoming a little worried about our similarities. I'm the same way about listening to audio!
Once upon a time, I was in the habit of taking a graph paper and scribbling in geometric patterns similar to your colouring pages, and then filling them in with colour. It was often something I did at school when the lessons became rather tedious (such as when the teacher was repeating something I already knew). The fun part was that sometimes, I could use those patterns for further creative pursuits.

[edenfalling]

Heh. Geometric patterns were one of my habitual note-taking doodles, back when I was regularly listening to lectures. I'd draw an eight-by-eight grid of squares, and then divide the squares into black and white triangles to create symmetrical patterns. Sometimes when I was particularly bored, I'd tile one pattern all the way across a page. I did this mostly freehand on standard notepaper, but occasionally in math class I'd use graph paper.

[marmota_b]

I think my friend did that more often; I was in the habit of having graph paper at hand, myself. There was also a lot of little flowers and dogs and stuff like that, sometimes even very sophisticated pictures. And we exchanged doodles, or one of us would start something and the other would finish it.
Somehow, I even managed to occasionally write a story under the table one year. Nowadays, I have no idea how I managed that. I could use more of that ability to squeeze in some writing!

[rosaxx50.livejournal.com]

Those geometric designs are quite pretty. I actually like your first and last ones the most. What can I say, I like pink! And blue & pink!

[edenfalling]

I think the first pattern is a little too busy -- I should have made larger 'shapes' out of some of the neighboring triangles -- but it is a good color combination. :-)

I was amused to realize that judging by these pictures, one might think my favorite color is green. This is not true; my favorite color is actually blue. But my blue marker from this particular marker set is awfully dark, and green just seemed to complement the various color palettes better.