“I guess I’m one of those really annoying people who always knew what they wanted to do even as a little kid,” Ellon colouring book artist Johanna Basford tells me.
Johanna published her first book back in 2011.
She has since sold over 25 million copies of her colouring books around the world.
“I always loved drawing, art, any kind of painting,” she recalls.
“And I was the kid that was always at the arts and crafts table at playgroup.
“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to do drawing.
“I drew on the walls a lot; I drew on the walls, my sister, magazines, any paper lying around.
“And since I became a mum, I think that must be how you nurture a creative soul.
“You don’t shout at them for drawing on walls and fancy surfaces.
“So now when my own children start drawing on walls, I just have to bite my tongue and suggest that maybe paper might be better,” she laughs.
How did Johanna start creating colouring books?
Now Johanna, who was previously married to BrewDog co-founder James Watt, has moved on from drawing on walls to creating her beautiful colouring books.
Her latest book, Magical Worlds, was released in October.
But creating her colouring books never feels like work for the Ellon artist.
“I say to my friends all the time: I don’t actually have a real job, I just feel like I’m still drawing pictures and colouring in,” laughs Johanna.
“Some days my kids will come home from school and say: What did you do at work today?
“And I say: I drew 17 butterflies and coloured in a hummingbird, and that was my day at work.
“How lucky am I?”
But the thought of Johanna’s colouring books actually started as a “tongue-in-cheek” joke.
“When I graduated art school my final collection was all black and white, hand-drawn artwork,” she says.
“And to be honest, it was mainly because I couldn’t afford coloured ink on a computer at that time, so I had to sort of rely on hand drawn things and doing things in single colour.
“But it actually worked really well in my favour, because I had a very distinct signature style.
“So everyone else was graduating with a lot of really colourful things, and I had this very standout final collection.”
After graduating from art school, Johanna started off freelancing as an illustrator, creating packaging, wallpaper and other interiors.
“My clients would say these drawings are great, they would actually make a really good colouring book.
“And it was all kind of tongue-in-cheek, and we would laugh about it.
“But eventually, I did get a call from a publishing house, and they invited me to do a children’s colouring book.”
Johanna Basford says colouring books for adults are ‘good for the soul’
Johanna, though, had something else in mind.
“I said I would love to do a colouring book, but I’d want to do one for grown-ups.
“I wanted to make it really elegant and sophisticated.
“So not bunny rabbit with bows in their hair driving a little car, or kiddie artwork like princesses.
“I wanted to do something that was as beautiful and as polished as the artwork I was doing for my perfume and champagne clients.”
Johanna strongly believes that colouring books are an important outlet for adults, too.
“I think any creative practice is good for the soul,” she says.
“Especially now when we’re all so caught up with our phones and social media.
“Anything that can make you more present, and decompress and self-soothe is a good thing.
“Creativity is such an instinctive way to look after yourself.
“When you see children, and they need a bit of quiet time, they pick up a crayon or a pencil and they draw a little picture.
“And they’re not sitting there wracked with self-doubt, because they don’t know yet to doubt themselves. They just know that they are creative and they can draw.
“I think grown-ups often get in their own head a bit.
“But in colourings books, the outline is all there, so all you have to do is bring the colour.
“So it’s quite an easy way to be creative, which is unusual.
“Drawing on a blank sheet of paper can be a bit daunting, but colouring books allow people to pick up a pen or pencil, and be creative, make their mark, without having the scariness of a blank page.”
Initially, Johanna turned down the colouring book project due to a lack of time.
“And then I thought about it some more,” she says.
“I realised this was something I really wanted to do. It could be a passion project.
“So I worked on the first book in the evenings and at the weekends, and still did my commercial work at the same time.
“I had no idea if it was going to do well.
“To me, it was just a fun little thing.
“I thought if I make a book that I myself love, then maybe a few other people will feel the same.
“And I remember when it came out, we printed 13,000 copies in the first print run. And I phoned my mum and said: You were going to have to get all your friends to buy copies of this book!”
Social media is ‘the world’s fridge’
“The third book was when it all went bananas,” says Johanna.
“Things started to blossom and flourish, and we saw a community beginning to grow online.”
Johanna has 207K followers on Instagram, where she shares videos of her design process and colours in her own books.
The creative community she has created online is something Johanna finds a lot of satisfaction in.
“It’s wonderful,” she says.
“I live up here in the north-east of Scotland, and the people that colour my books are all over the world.
“And while I always am sceptical of social media – and there are parts that worry me – other bits of it are just brilliant.
“Without social media, we could not have grown that community.
“It’s just so welcoming and helpful.
“And everybody’s sharing their artwork, which is also lovely.
“Because I think that’s a big part of being creative. It’s the show and tell bit at the end.
“So when you were a little, you know, you wanted to show somebody your picture, and you want your mum to put it on the fridge.
“And the online community is basically the grown up version of that.
“You know, people share their pictures, and everyone loves them and leaves a little nice comment.
“It’s the same thing, it’s the world’s fridge.”
Is AI a threat? Not if you like art with a soul, says Johanna
With social media, comes the threat of AI-generated art, which is becoming more and more common online.
Johanna, though, doesn’t see this as a concern.
“Maybe that’s naïve of me, and I should be,” she says.
“But even before everything with AI had grown, people were using computer-generated art.
“People have said to me: ‘Why don’t you generate these digitally?’
“I hand draw everything, which means my circles are a little bit wonky, my straight lines usually have a bit of a kink to them, and if I sneeze, there’s a smudgy bit.
“But I think all those things give my artwork a sense of soul and a character that you just don’t get with digitally-created artwork.
“I love the fact that I can show you a stack-full of smudgy graphite drawings, I can tell you that butterfly’s there because I was eating a sandwich and I got a sticky fingerprint on it.
“All those little stories give it soul.”
Conversation