Coloring an Easter Egg

When I was little, I loved coloring books and crayons. I spent lots of hours with crayon in hand, especially on weekends and school vacations once I had started school. I mentioned how coloring was in my genes here and this was an early phase!

At the end of our kitchen, there was this built-in white naugahyde couch that spanned the whole width of the room, with 3 large drawers underneath. The center drawer was “us kids’s.” That was where all the coloring books and crayons lived, and it had its own unique waxy smell.

That drawer was super sturdy being made of solid wood — sometimes hard to pull out, especially if it got a little crooked — and my next-youngest sister and I would hang over the edge sorting through our coloring books to find just the right one.

Plenty of squabbles broke out while we were hanging over the sides of that drawer! But soon we would be at the table coloring away.

Three or four summers, around when I was 6-ish (both before and just after my youngest sister arrived on scene) my Great-Aunt Laura and Uncle Doc, who lived several hours away, would have me and my next-youngest sister over to stay with them for a week. It was a wonderful time, with running across a field to wave at the caboose man of any train going by, learning how to catch night crawlers, and coloring with Uncle Doc.

Uncle Doc showed me how to color darker around the edges of each shape, then fill in the center more lightly. That was my coloring method for a long time after! My introduction to shading! I loved it extra well, because my awesome Uncle Doc had shown it to me. (I used that shading on some of my stripes of this project.)

Then there were coloring contests. The grocery store we shopped at had coloring contests for almost every holiday. I still see them happening here and there, but since almost all my grocery store experience for the last 30-some years (yikes!) had been at a military commissary, I’m not sure how often these happen for the little ones of today.

I actually wonder just how much time today’s little ones spend with crayons in hand? Sad thought, and I’m showing my generation here!! “Back when I was a kid, everything was (better) …” lol  NOT!

In any case, my sister and I would often color up the MIMEOGRAPHED coloring page of a Christmas tree, a Valetine heart, shamrock, and my favorite, an Easter scene with Easter eggs drawn with patterns of dots and rick-rack and flowers.

Play “Spot the Difference” with these ;) Color doesn’t count.

After we colored them, my mom would return them to the store where they would be hung with all the other entries. Someone somehow chose a winner, but for me that wasn’t the point. It was an Official Coloring Page and that made it special.

With all those memories running around my head, recently I’ve been wanting to get my hands on some Easter Egg coloring pages with the rows of dots, the rick-rack, the flowers! I wanted to play with my colored pencils and markers — no crayons this time, anyway. (I plan on coloring with Skittle in a couple years, though!)

I looked over at Dover Pubs but wasn’t thrilled, and finally had the brilliant idea to draw my own coloring page! So I did! Using influences from Zenspirations, and my own doodling, I channeled my 1st grade self and drew up an egg.

I did find myself going very Zen, completely in the moment, absorbed with line and color. It was a wonderfully relaxing evening :)

Guess where I’m putting my colored Easter egg? ON THE REFRIGERATOR, of course!!!

Gail