Arting and Stress Reduction +
Free Coloring Sheets!

April is National Stress Awareness Month, which is an opportunity to raise awareness about the impact of stress on our lives and to promote healthy coping strategies. One such strategy is art-making, which has been shown to reduce stress and improve overall well-being from dopamine to heart rate to even potentially lengthening one’s life! Art really does the body good, and I encourage all of you to give it some time during your days and weeks. It’s about the process and getting lost a bit outside of time on the intuitive side.

I’m kicking it off with a series of free coloring sheets you can download and print on you printer! If you want to use watercolor, I found that the presentation, matte paper worked well (though not as good as watercolor paper). You could do these with your family and honestly frame them easily, perhaps a bathroom art! 

Mindful coloring is a popular way to reduce stress and anxiety. Choose a coloring book with intricate designs, and set aside some time each day to color mindfully. Focus on the present moment, and allow yourself to relax and unwind. I like to have a candle on too and sometimes some groovey new age music vibes like Anugama’s Shamanic Dream.

A note about the coloring sheets in this series: I make these in Midjourney where I use words to describe what I am imaging, and the AI program returns a series of images. Ones I like, I keep. It is a bit random and good results are a bit of luck and really good use of words. 🙂 

Inkjet Paper for Watercolor

Example presentation I used for watercolors. This matte paper doesn’t buckle too much. Regular inkjet paper is fine for markers and dry media such as colored pencils and crayons

If you use these, I would love to see photos of your work and how you experienced it! Use #FloralPolarBearColoringSheet on your posts or tag me @jillyhop333. 🙂

I also am selling a pack of 13 images including this polar bear on my Etsy. Foxes, unicorns, ducks are among the animals featured: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1465403489/13-spring-coloring-sheets-mothers-day