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Coloring for the community

Sherrie Styx's Two-Dimensional Design students

SMC Students Creating Zentangle Coloring Books

Published on October 20, 2022 - 3 p.m.

Perhaps aspiring graphic designers in Southwestern Michigan College’s Two-Dimensional Design class thought they’d seen the last of coloring books and crayons.

They have and they haven’t. For instructor Sherrie Styx’s project students are creating coloring books with their original drawings.

Further, the coloring books, “in the holistic view of giving back to the community, are going to the hospital (Ascension Borgess-Lee) and the nursing home (The Timbers of Cass County, both in Dowagiac) for people to color and relax,” Styx said.

It will be an eclectic collection of artwork contributed by the dozen designers, but since this is a college campus, it’s time to shift gears to terminology a tad loftier than “coloring.”

They’re actually Zentangles, or miniature abstract works of art created by a collection of patterns typically done on a 3 ½-inch-square paper “tile” using pencil and a black pen.

The small size allows for a work of art that can be completed in a relatively short period of time.

Benefits attributed to Zentangle, created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas, are increased self-confidence, relief of stress and anxiety (that’s the zen part), improved eye-hand coordination and nurturing and developing creativity.

The Massachusetts grandmother should not be confused with SMC’s Maria Thomas, the 2015 honor graduate from Hartford who won the $300 Mina scholarship at the 2014 art show and Dr. David Mathews’ President’s Award at the 2015 exhibit with a “stunning” watercolor of Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings.

Styx’s participants include: Charity Cowgill, Coloma; Julius Vinall, South Bend; Emma Taylor, Watervliet; Katie Ianello, Edwardsburg; William Lafleur, Chicago; Cecilia Matthews, Edwardsburg; Isaiah Spencer, Bay City; Zach Stokes, Niles; Morgan Koenigshof, Buchanan; Sam Booker, Edwardsburg; Tommy Dotson, South Bend; and Nate Goins, Cassopolis.

Cowgill’s offers a recurring theme of castles, fish and trees. Her style was influenced by Emmy-winner Mark Kistler’s 2017-18 series Imagination Station. He taught on the show how to draw dragons, spaceships, koala bears, mermaids and sharks as well as castles.

“I came back to school after 20 years to make a hobby into a career,” Cowgill said.

Vinall depicted a snake, while Lafleur and Stokes, a Roadrunner basketball player, went more for abstract shapes.

Spencer started with a whale and finished with some gusty clouds that some viewers might mistake for a snail trail spanning the heavens. Matthews drew an array of desserts. Taylor’s seahorse represents her desire to visit an aquarium. Ianello imagined an aviation scene.

“I’ve done this project numerous times,” Styx said. “The community enjoys working on the coloring books, while students learn about balance, proportion, detail and repetition.”

“This is my kind of therapy,” Cowgill said. “If I get nervous, I start drawing. It helps calm anxiety.”

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