I ♥ Coloring

I've always loved coloring.  Pens, crayons, colored pencils, coloring books, geometric designs, my own drawings- I love it all.  I find coloring very relaxing.

Trevor loves coloring too.  But while I spent hours and hours coloring on my own as a kid, Trevor considers it a social activity.  He doesn't want to color unless he's coloring next to someone else who is coloring.  So we frequently color together. 

I'm always on the lookout for coloring contests or holiday-themed coloring pages.  When I saw two pages on the Sparky Firepants blog, I immediately printed out copies for Trevor and me.  I love that there are two different styles of pages.  The first is a typical blackline coloring page.

Mine:

Trevor's.

Some people feel that this type of coloring page discourages a child's creativity.  I completely disagree.  Trevor obviously didn't feel limited by conventional colors when he colored.  He didn't happen to add his own details to this page, but he frequently does.  I like this type of coloring page because it helps him develop fine motor skills and allows him to try out new techniques.  See the way he colored the lettering?  He saw me doing mine that way and asked me to teach him how.  I love that he experimented with something new.

The other coloring page we did definitely encouraged our creativity!

Mine.

(The last one is supposed to be a cow.  I hope the others are more obvious.)

Trevor's.

Once again, we inspired each other. Trevor started with the bunny jack-o-lantern.  (It's colored grey, but the scanner didn't pick that up.)  I ran with that idea and made a whole page full of animals.  Trevor used my idea of a pig and a giraffe.  He added the fish, then decided he wanted the last two to just be faces.

I ♥ coloring!