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The golden age of adult coloring books is here, and right now especially, folks need to put colored pencils or crayons to paper and focus on something playful. Even if you’re a pretty subpar artist, the act of scribbling inside the lines here is a triumph in and of itself. Coloring allows you to mindfully engage enough with one task to occupy your mind, without feeling anxious that you have to be productive while cooped up inside your apartment.
Incredible NYC illustrators have taken their doodling and artistic abilities to create digital coloring books ready to download and print at home, so you can decompress while adding some color to your life.
Emmy-award winning animator and artist Mike Perry
Fans of Comedy Central's Broad City should be familiar with Mike Perry’s psychedelic work. For the uninitiated, his vital animated illustrations for the show are found at the beginning of each episode, setting the scene for what you’re about to watch. Perry created a 150-page coloring book in 2017 filled with his hand-drawn animations inspired by the show. It allows you to feel like you're a part of Abbi and llana’s crazy world and color it into 2-D.
Beyond Broad City, Perry's years of art can be found inside studios from NYC to LA, and even as murals in the community. Now, while self-isolating, the Brooklyn-based artist has given the gift of more drawings for us to color, this time inspired by his personal life, free for download here. There are 70 whole pages in the PDF.
Mike Perry
Perry told us: “Someone on Instagram said, ‘Mike I just finished coloring your Broad City coloring book. Do you have anything I could print and color?’ The answer was yes. I keep my archive very organized and have a running document of BW drawings from the last 15 years. So I exported it as a PDF. I have the work and I felt like people might be looking for something to do.”
Need new doodling tunes while you fill in those smoky bubble letters? He also made a public playlist called "BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE" on Spotify.
Acclaimed NYC photographer Louise Lawler and illustrator Jon Buller
New York artist Louise Lawler is known for her amazing photographs which include images of other artist’s works hung up in museums, storage rooms and the homes of collectors. Lawler’s shots demystified the art object by showing how it sits as a commodity and piece of decor. Now, with the help of children’s book illustrator Jon Buller, there are black-and-white traced versions of her photographs available.
12 of her tracings are up for download for all ages to print out and use as coloring sheets via MoMA’s website.
Courtesy Louise/ MoMA. Pollock and Tureen (traced). 1984/2013
“This gesture comes from the artist’s interest in the way art can reach viewers beyond the museum and gallery system, and can playfully contribute to personal creative transformation. We encourage you to post and tag your colored drawings #DrawingwithMoMA on social media, and we will share a selection on our channels,” shared in a post on MoMA’s website.
You can download all 12 sheets as a PDF here.
Louise Lawler/ MoMA Still Life (Candle) (traced). 2003/2013
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