I’ve just created my first set of digital pages based on the “Ethereal Forest” collaborative painting. This piece came from a small group project where a few friends (adults and children) added their own marks, patterns, and layers to build a shared artwork for my Beginner’s Guide to Collaborative Art.

Now I’ve taken that painting and turned it into pages you can use in your own way — for slow colouring, relaxed doodling, or even a simple shared activity for a pair or in small groups.

I’ve also set up a Patreon page for my 'Creative Pages'.

There’s a Community Tier (free) where I’ll be sharing updates and creative ideas. The two designs I share with you here are there for free too.

And there's a paid tier called Pattern Play Creative Pages, where I’ll be adding downloadable pages regularly. $5 per month.

Each project will be released as a series of 10 designs, each available as both a colouring and doodling page. I’ll be sharing 4 designs per month (8 pages total). 

I’d really love your input on these first two designs:

• What do you think of my idea to turn collaborative paintings into creative pages?
• Do you prefer colouring or doodling?
• Do you find these too simple or too detailed?

These are my first digital designs. Previously, after a community project, I’d hand-draw colouring pages based on the artwork and share them back with the schools for their classes to use.

I quickly realised I enjoyed doing them for myself too, so I started thinking… why not create them for every project and begin sharing them online?

I’m a doodler myself — I find it relaxing. I enjoy colouring too, but I notice I become a bit more perfectionist about it. Having a simple colour scheme definitely helps.

You can print these at A4, A3, or A2 for individual or group creative sessions. If you try them, I’d love to see what you create.

Colouring Page

These colouring pages start from a hand-drawn layer over a print of the original painting, then are refined digitally in Procreate into an A2 format.

Here’s a detail of a colouring page, completed using regular pencils (not specialist art pencils), using my “Aura” colour scheme — pink, yellow, purple, and light blue (plus black and white):

Doodling Page

These pages are more open-ended, with a simple structure and a strip of starter patterns to continue or extend.

You can use a fine liner or just a regular black pen.

Here’s a detail of a completed doodle page using a simple black pen:

I’d genuinely love your feedback because it will help shape what I create next.

For example, these first two designs use a couple of line thicknesses, but my first ten in the 'Thrive' series use one line thickness throughout (see a preview below). Do you prefer that, or do varied line thicknesses feel more interesting to you? I personally prefer slightly thicker lines. A lot of the “adult colouring books” I’ve seen are so intricate and fine-lined that I honestly wonder how people finish them!

And then there’s the flood of AI-generated colouring pages online now. Part of what interests me here is creating something genuinely human-made — real collaborative artworks transformed into unique colouring and doodling designs.

Thanks for being here as I explore this new direction. It’s fun turning collaborative paintings into another form of shared creative experience.

Happy Painting,

Charndra

P.S. My first Pattern Play Creative Pages are called the Thrive Series. They’re based on a mural I created with 106 students and staff at a specialist disability school here in Adelaide. I’ll be sharing more of these inside the free Community Tier on Patreon as the first designs are released this month.