4 minute read
Coloring Beyond the Lines
Drawing to inspire, motivate, and fulfill
Story by Felicia Frazar | photos by Steve Vrooman
Michelle Johnson has enjoyed drawing and coloring since she was young. She has found that art, particularly drawing, has soothing qualities that offer her an outlet that exceeds just a hobby. Johnson has used her talents to craft a coloring book, guide others into the world of coloring, and create the Have Color Will Travel community.
“I always had a passion for drawing. As a child, I drew my own comics and things like that,” she said. “I’ve been known as a person that loves to color. I’ve been a coloring enthusiast my whole life prior to that.”
Just a few years ago, Johnson — who is usually an active person, always on the go — had surgery that had her on a slow road to recovery.
“Six weeks of inactivity and pain and not really knowing if I would be able to get back to what I was previously doing drew me into a pretty deep depression,” she said. “Even though I had plenty of things to do, none of them were really taking away the fear and the depression or the anxiety of the future.”
Getting tired of writing about her recovery in a journal, Johnson turned to drawing. After completing her drawing, Johnson posted it to Facebook, which garnered a lot of attention from her friends.
“That was 2015, and people liked it,” she said. “They suggested I create a coloring book.”
She took their advice and began crafting more pages and compiling them for her first book, “Doodled Blooms,” which she said was very “therapeutic.”
As she began healing and drawing more, Johnson drew her inspiration to finish the book from her family.
Her husband’s grandmother began taking a turn with a cancer diagnosis, and Johnson’s mother was having a rough time transitioning into retirement.
“I gave myself this goal of finishing the book “Doodled Blooms” for my mother’s 70th birthday in January and in time for Grammy to be able to see the product of her effect on me and her love on me and love of my creativity and to give her something that I had made to color,” she said. “With the cancer and her hip injury, she wasn’t capable of doing a lot of stuff anymore, but she could color. So those were the two strong motivating factors to finishing the book. I did finish it in time, six months before she passed.”
The book reinvigorated her mother’s creativity, as well as others. Johnson was invited to the Seguin Public Library to offer a discussion on coloring and start a group session. The event attracted about 75 people, spurring the library to create the Adult Coloring Club.
“I was really impacted by what I saw. The grownups in front of them had a page and great supplies, and they didn’t know how to choose a color to start coloring, or how to choose a page,” she said. “It really woke up something in me and that we lack education for adults and enrichment opportunities. Jackie and I conceived in doing once a month meetings. Then it became into me teaching art lessons.”
Johnson expanded those educational opportunities to the New Braunfels Public Library and began a group there as well.
With trying to work on a second book, teaching dance classes and working on other projects, Johnson felt it was time for her to take a step back from the coloring clubs and focus on her drawings.
Over time, Johnson created her blog Have Color Will Travel to expand the color community. It’s where she shares tips, ideas, creative coloring packages and free coloring sheets to the coloring community.
“Fall 2018, I started to focus more heavily on Have Color Will Travel,” she said. “That is when the free coloring pages started. I started my blog and started being more of an advocate for my business.”
In her online coloring shop, Johnson offers various postcards and bookmarks for people to purchase.
The free sheets which come out every four to six weeks are different works than what she creates for people to purchase.
“I draw for reasons other that have nothing to do with what I consider to be for a coloring page,” she said. “I try to make my free coloring pages to be motivational or uplifting. My goal is always positivity. My last one my social media following chose. It was a collection of flowers I was just drawing.”
Johnson plans to make her second book larger than the first with more coloring sheets.
“I’m planning it to be over 25 original drawings and ‘Doodled Blooms’ was 15,” she said. “There is some research that goes into each one. I’m challenging myself to do 25 completely different fonts.”
