今天你塗色了嗎 《祕密花園》的治癒魔力

It may surprise fans of Johanna Basford’s intricately hand-drawn coloring books that the artist is, by her own admission, “pretty bad” at coloring.

可能會讓書迷感到驚訝的是，創作了精美的塗色本的喬安娜·巴斯福德(Johanna Basford)承認自己塗色“很差勁”。

“I can’t stay in the lines,” she said sheepishly.

她不好意思地說：“我老是塗出去”。

Not that it matters. Ms. Basford’s coloring book “Secret Garden,” a 96-page collection of elaborate black-and-white ink drawings of flowers, leaves, trees and birds, has become a global best-seller.

不過這根本不影響什麼，重要的是她的96頁塗色本《祕密花園》(Secret Garden)已成爲全球暢銷書。

Since its release in spring 2013, “Secret Garden” has sold more than 1.4 million copies in 22 languages. It shot to the top of Amazon’s best-seller list this month, overtaking books by authors like Harper Lee, Anthony Doerr and Paula Hawkins. Her follow-up, “Enchanted Forest,” which came out in February, is briskly selling through its first print run of nearly 226,000 copies.

從2013年春天出版以來， 這本滿是細節豐富的花鳥蟲魚的書已經翻譯成22種語言，銷量超過140萬冊。本月它直登亞馬遜(Amazon)的暢銷書榜首位，擊敗了哈珀·李(Harper Lee)、安瑟尼·杜爾(Anthony Doerr)和寶拉·霍金斯(Paula Hawkins)的書。她的接下來的作品《魔法森林》(Enchanted Forest)在二月出版，首印輕鬆賣了近22.6萬冊。

What makes Ms. Basford’s breakout success all the more surprising is her target audience: adults who like coloring books.

而讓巴斯福德的躥紅愈發顯得驚人的是，她的目標受衆是喜歡塗色本的成年人。

There are, it seems, a lot of them. Though it is tempting to describe the market for her books as niche, Ms. Basford, a 31-year-old illustrator in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, has quickly outgrown that label.

看起來這樣的還不在少數。人們傾向於認爲她所針對的是一個小衆市場，但這位年方31歲的蘇格蘭阿伯丁郡插畫家已迅速超越這個範疇。

Like Play-Doh, jungle gyms and nursery rhymes, coloring books have always seemed best suited for the preschool set. So Ms. Basford and her publisher were surprised to learn that there was a robust — and lucrative — market for coloring books aimed at grown-ups. When they first tested the waters with “Secret Garden” a year ago, they released a cautiously optimistic first printing of 16,000 books.

和橡皮泥、攀玩架、童謠一樣，塗色本向來被認爲是給學齡前兒童的東西。因此當巴斯福德和她的出版商得知針對成人的塗色本市場規模不小且利潤豐厚時，他們是很意外的。一年前他們用《祕密花園》試水，本着謹慎樂觀的態度決定首印1.6萬冊。

“I thought my mom was going to have to buy a lot of copies,” Ms. Basford said. “When the sales started to take off, it was a real shock.”

“我本來以爲要讓我媽去買一大堆回來了，”巴斯福德說。“銷量往上衝的時候我真是被嚇一大跳。”

Surging demand caught Ms. Basford and her publisher off guard. Fan mail poured in from busy professionals and parents who confided to Ms. Basford that they found coloring in her books relaxing. More accolades flowed on social media, as people posted images from their coloring books.

高漲的需求是巴斯福德和她的出版商始料未及的。忙碌的職場人士和家長紛紛給巴斯福德來信，坦陳給她的書塗色讓他們感到放鬆。人們把塗色本上的手繪圖發到網上，又在社交媒體中掀起一股熱潮。

Hard-core fans often buy several copies of her books at a time, to experiment with different color combinations. Others have turned it into a social activity. Rebekah Jean Duthie, who lives in Queensland, Australia, and works for the Australian Red Cross, says she regularly gathers with friends for “coloring circles” at cafes and in one another’s homes.

鐵桿粉絲經常一次買好幾本她的書，嘗試用不同的顏色組合。還有的人已經把它當成一種社交活動。家住昆士蘭的瑞貝卡·簡·達西(Rebekah Jean Duthie)在澳大利亞紅十字會工作。她定期和朋友在咖啡館或彼此的家中一起玩“轉圈塗色”。

“Each page can transport you back to a gentler time of life,” she said of Ms. Basford’s books in an email.

“每一頁都能讓你回到一段更祥和的時光，”她在一封電子郵件中這麼描述巴斯福德的書。

Ms. Basford has become something of a literary celebrity in South Korea, where “Secret Garden” has sold more than 430,000 copies, she says. The craze was kicked off in part, it seems, by a Korean pop star, Kim Ki-bum, who posted a delicately colored-in floral pattern from Ms. Basford’s book on Instagram, where he has 1.8 million followers.

在韓國，巴斯福德已經成爲一位文學名流，她說在那裏《祕密花園》銷量已超過43萬冊。這種狂熱是由韓國明星金起範拉開序幕，他把巴斯福德的花卉圖案精心塗色，發到Instagram上，他在那裏擁有180萬粉絲。

Part of the apparent appeal is the tactile, interactive nature of the books, which offer respite to the screen-weary. “People are really excited to do something analog and creative, at a time when we’re all so overwhelmed by screens and the Internet,” she said. “And coloring is not as scary as a blank sheet of paper or canvas. It’s a great way to de-stress.”

一定程度上，這些書的吸引人之處顯然在於它們的觸感和互動性，給厭倦了屏幕的人帶來一些緩解。“在被屏幕和互聯網包圍的時代，人們非常樂於去做一些模擬的、創造性的事情，”她說。“塗色不像在一張空白的紙或畫布上畫那麼嚇人。它是緩解壓力的好方法。”

Ms. Basford started out in fashion, working on silk-screen designs. Then she opened a studio on her parents’ trout and salmon farm in Scotland, and began designing hand-drawn wallpaper for luxury hotels and boutiques. When the financial crisis hit, her business evaporated. She closed the studio and found work as a commercial illustrator for companies like Starbucks, Nike and Sony.

巴斯福德一開始從事的是時尚業，做絲網印刷設計。她的父母在蘇格蘭有一個鱒魚和鮭魚養殖場，她在那裏開了一個工作室，爲豪華酒店和精品店設計手繪壁紙。後來金融危機來襲，她的生意全沒了。她關了工作室，開始做商業插畫家，爲像星巴克(Starbucks)、耐克(Nike)和索尼(Sony)這樣的公司工作。

Her publishing break came in 2011, when an editor at Laurence King Publishing discovered her work online. The editor thought her graceful illustrations could work well as a children’s coloring book.

她在出版業的突破出現在2011年，當時勞倫斯·金出版社(Laurence King Publishing)的一位編輯在網上看到她的作品，認爲她的這些優美的插圖很適合用作兒童塗色本。

“I came back and said I would like to do a coloring book for grown-ups, and it got a bit quiet for a moment,” Ms. Basford said. “Coloring books for adults weren’t as much of a thing then.”

“我回答說，我想要爲成年人畫一本塗色本，當時有些冷場，”巴斯福德說。“那時候還不太有成人塗色書這種東西。”

To convince them that it was a viable market, she drew five sample pages of detailed, mosaic-like illustrations. The publishers were sold.

爲了讓他們相信這是一個可行的市場，她畫了五幅樣圖，是有豐富細節的馬賽克式插畫。出版社被說服了。

“When Johanna first approached us with the idea, we knew that people would love her illustrations as much as we did, but could never have predicted just how big the adult coloring trend would be,” said Jo Lightfoot, editorial director of Laurence King Publishing.

勞倫斯·金出版社編輯部主任喬·萊特福特(Jo Lightfoot)說：“當喬安娜第一次向我們提出這個想法時，我們知道人們會跟我們一樣喜愛她的插圖，但我們絕對沒料到成人塗色書能這麼火。”

Ms. Basford spent the next nine months working on the book at night and freelancing as an illustrator during the day. Occasionally she had doubts. “I was worried that coloring for adults was silly and it was just me that wanted to do it,” she said.

接下來九個月裏，巴斯福德每晚都在畫那本書，白天仍做自由職業插畫師的工作。偶爾她也會懷疑。“我很擔心成人塗色書是個傻主意，只有我纔想這麼做，”她說。

It turns out she was far from alone. Other entries to this small but growing category include Patricia J. Wynne’s lavish, nature-themed Creative Haven coloring books — discreetly described as being “designed for experienced colorists” — and the more explicitly titled “Coloring Books for Grownups,” released by Chiquita Publishing. A subspecies of these books promote the meditative aspects of coloring and doodling, including “Color Me Calm” (subtitle: “A Zen Coloring Book”) and books that promise “Easy Meditation Through Coloring.”

原來她一點也不孤單。這個小衆但在不斷擴大的門類中，還包括帕特里夏·J·韋恩(Patricia J. Wynne)的“創意港灣”(Creative Haven)，一個華麗的自然主題塗色本系列，被小心翼翼地描述爲“針對經驗豐富的塗色玩家”，而金吉達出版社(Chiquita Publishing)的“大人的塗色本”系列(Coloring Books for Grownups)就要明確很多。這種書有一個子類是宣揚塗色和塗鴉的冥想功能的，包括《我塗我平靜》（Color Me Calm，副標題：“一本禪塗色本”），還有的承諾“用塗色實現簡易的冥想”。

Major publishers are seizing on the trend. This year, Little, Brown will release four illustrated coloring books for adults, all subtitled “Color Your Way to Calm.” The books, “Splendid Cities” by the British artists Rosie Goodwin and Alice Chadwick and three titles by the French illustrator Zoé de Las Cases, feature detailed cityscapes with famous landmarks, cafes and street life. Promotional materials for the books emphasize the health benefits of “mindful coloring,” noting that the activity “has been shown to be a stress reliever for adults.”

大出版商正在趕這股潮流。今年，利特爾&布朗出版社(Little, Brown)將出版四本面向成人的插畫塗色本，統一副標題爲“塗色讓你靜下來”(Color Your Way to Calm)。包括由英國藝術家羅茜·古德溫(Rosie Goodwin)與愛麗絲·查德威克(Alice Chadwick)畫的“錦繡城”(Splendid Cities)系列，還有法國插畫家祖依·德拉卡斯(Zoé de Las Cases)的三本書，詳盡勾畫了著名地標、咖啡館和街道生活等城市景觀。書的宣傳材料強調“用心的塗色”對健康的好處，稱這種活動“已被證明是成人的壓力緩解法”。

Ms. Basford is now working on her third book, after soliciting suggestions for themes from fans. A vocal faction has requested an ocean-themed coloring book. “I’ve been drawing starfish and seahorses this afternoon,” she said.

巴斯福德目前正在爲她的第三本書的主題徵求書迷的建議。有一撥人強烈要求以海洋爲主題的塗色本。“今天下午我一直在畫海星和海馬，”她說。

In the meantime, “Secret Garden” has sold out in many markets, to the consternation of fans. Laurence King is reprinting 75,000 copies for the United States.

與此同時，《祕密花園》在許多市場都賣光了，令書迷陷入恐慌。勞倫斯·金出版社爲美國市場又印了7.5萬冊。

This month, Ms. Basford tried to calm her followers with a post on her Facebook page, promising that newly printed books would be shipping in a few weeks: “Don’t panic! New stock of Secret Garden and Enchanted Forest is on its way!”

爲了安撫書迷，這個月巴斯福德在Facebook上承諾幾周內會有加印到貨：“不要驚慌！《祕密花園》和《魔法森林》補貨馬上到！”

Some were not placated. “WEEKS?” one frantic follower replied. “I can’t possibly wait WEEKS!”

有的人卻沒那麼容易打發。“幾周？”一個情緒激動的粉絲回貼說，“我根本等不了那麼久！”