Come inside the colouring-book corner of our office as we create our second book in the 5-Minute Colouring Book Series.
Back in September, 2024, Lisa and I started a new and exciting project. We were bringing out a colouring book. A five-minute colouring book all about Tea and Coffee. Excited about what we were doing, we poured all our time into drawing pictures that we would love to colour in, and to our surprise we had it all done and out before Christmas.
We knew the book was to be a part of a series, but that was some time down the track. There would be a loooong, well-earned break before then. Or so we thought.
At the end of January, as a kind of late Christmas present, I got a new toy. A new drawing tablet that really needed to be tried out. So I sat down and drew a picture that matched the theme for another colouring book we’d planned and posted it on our virtual office app (ClickUp) with a comment about keeping it aside for our Home Sweet Home colouring book.
Posting that picture opened the floodgates of our excitement. Our Home Sweet Home project was moved from Future Projects to Current Projects on our virtual office, and ideas and draft images were rapidly being posted by both of us.
Above is the colouring-book corner of our office. We have separate sections for novels, for notebooks, for cards & gifts, and a whole section for business-related issues. We even have a lunch room where we chat about life and general things, such as Christmas or current music favourites.
You can see that each task shown above has its own picture. The task called “Final Images & Pages For Book 1 – Tea & Coffee” features the back cover of our first colouring book. The other two are just inspiration images. Lisa is in charge of finding the perfect pictures for each new task. I love seeing what she ends up with. Just seeing the tent scene had me picturing some great drawings for that future project. Oh, and I can’t show you them here, but there is a whole list of future colouring books waiting to be moved to “Current Projects” so keep your pencils sharpened.
The creative process of our colouring books is very much a joint effort thanks to our virtual office. We start in the planning section, throwing ideas out there, posting photos as inspiration and working out which of our styles best suits a particular image. Sometimes it is obvious who would best suit a particular drawing. Sometimes there are elements that suit each of us and we decide to collaborate.
Here’s a look inside the Planning Section and a comment from Lisa about making a list of ideas.
You can’t see those ‘Action Items’ Lisa mentions, but if I scroll down the left area of the screen, they appear. After an initial brainstorm, we can assign tasks to ourselves or to another person. It’s a way of bookmarking a concept we think would best suit our individual styles.
After some planning, we move on to Drafts. Here we post our initial drawings or concepts. Some pictures are given the golden buzzer treatment and go “straight through to the finals.” Some need a bit more tweaking, so we throw ideas back and forth until we are both happy. And it is important to us that both of us are happy before a picture goes into one of our colouring books.
In case you are worried, I promise you this process remains very friendly. Let me put your mind at ease with an example. The following picture was posted by me along with a comment.
Below is Lisa’s reply:
It was a golden buzzer for me this time. After playing dramatic music while I cheered, I gave Lisa a thumbs up. I do this because I can be a little bit slow getting to all the comments posted on our virtual office, so the thumbs up is my way of saying “I have finally read it”. We have other reactions available as well, and we have been known to have fun with them at times.
Just today, one month after we started Home Sweet Home, Lisa posted the following comment:
(You’ll have to get the book to see the picture she is referring to.)
I couldn’t believe we had already created all the pictures we needed for our next colouring book. I was clearly having too much fun to pay attention.
Now I need to finalise the cover (you’ll get a sneak peak of it soon) and finish the layout of all the internals, but you can expect the book to be available on Amazon in April. If you can’t wait that long, remember that our first colouring book, Tea and Coffee, is already available. Click the image below to find out more.
About the Author: Naomi Blythe
