Like a lot of people, I grew up stressed and depressed, barely hanging on to my sanity as I entered the working world.

And I heard all the same clichés about how to unwind and enjoy life from “well meaning” people. Be grateful. Be kind. Be mindful. But I'd grown up with a cell phone, and anytime I wasn't doing SOMETHING, I felt like I was wasting time.

Coloring books were a massive help. I learned that mindfulness and meditation wasn't about staring quietly into space for 15 minutes and trying not to fidget.

It was about getting a clear head and living in the now.

The only problem is that I was walking around the college campus with a coloring book - which was NOT helping my popularity.

But years later, everybody's learning what I learned back then…if I could clear my mind with a coloring book, I could do it outdoors, I could do it while surfing, I could do it with my family.

You know, unless the kids are being REALLY loud that day.

Coloring books, as inexpensive as they are, were the number one tool for giving me peace of mind in my life.

And as I get a little older, I find myself going back to them over and over.

Can I tell you a few things you might not know about coloring?

• You can color practically anything. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to spend the day coloring in flowers and swirls and flowers and swirls and MORE flowers and MORE swirls. There's tons of variety from pop culture to modern art to sci-fi to amazing landscapes - anything you can imagine.
• You can get REALLY GOOD at this. Nobody wants to make the kind of stuff they made in grade school. I'll show you how to use simple texture and detail to make cool, eye-popping work.
• You can learn about art. I wasn't really an artistic person, but the more I colored, the more I learned about layering, countour hatching, blending, the more I understood how art worked and could tell "good" stuff from bad stuff.
• It just feels good. Inside, you're going to learn how therapeutic this is - a tool to push away negativity, stress, and anxiety.

I struggled with depression as a kid and I know that endlessly talking about pain can make it worse sometimes. But when you move - just a finger - in the right direction, you'll have amazing results.

Coloring Stress and Depression Away is a perfect guide for showing you how. You'll learn about light, shadows, patterns, and all the basics of art in detail, with examples.

I'll also show you step by step how to use all of these techniques to make a beautiful rendition of the New York skyline.

This book isn't just a fun walkthrough, it's a testament to the beauty of art. I'm really hopeful that this book can HELP leave you in the same great place that coloring left me.