Prompts by level
“Use this prompt” fills in the generator and sets the detail level. Every page is drawn fresh, so if one misses, change one detail and try again.
| For | Prompt | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Bold and easySimple | a cozy café table with a cup of coffee, a croissant and a vase of tulips, bold lines, large spaces An adult subject with child-sized spaces: good for markers, tired eyes or an unsteady hand. |
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| RelaxedMedium | a cottage garden with foxgloves, a watering can and a wooden gate Enough detail for an evening without a sharpened pencil for every space. |
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| IntricateDetailed | an owl made of zentangle patterns, each feather filled with a different pattern, fine but unbroken lines Patterns inside one clear outline keep a dense page readable. |
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| Intricate sceneDetailed | a row of tall Amsterdam canal houses with bicycles, window boxes and detailed brickwork Repeating architecture rewards long sessions. |
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| BotanicalDetailed | a botanical illustration of a single peony with buds and leaves, fine but unbroken lines One large subject keeps the detail at a printable scale. |
Three kinds of adult page
“Adult” covers very different needs. Decide which of these you want before you write the prompt:
| Kind | What it looks like | Good for | Setting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bold and easy | Thick lines, large spaces, grown-up subjects | Markers, short sessions, low vision, older relatives | Simple |
| Relaxed | Medium detail, a clear picture | An evening with pencils or gel pens | Medium |
| Intricate | Dense patterns and small spaces | Sharp colored pencils, several sittings | Detailed |
Bold-and-easy pages are not children's pages. Ask for adult subjects (a kitchen shelf of jars, a sailboat in a harbor, a vintage bicycle) and add “bold lines, large spaces”. Leave out words like cute and cartoon if you want the page to feel grown-up.
How fine the detail can get
Every page is 1024 by 1024 pixels. Printed 7.5 inches wide, one pixel is about 0.19 mm, so lines only a pixel or two wide can print faint or broken, and spaces smaller than a pencil tip are frustrating to fill. Two prompt habits help:
- Ask for “fine but unbroken lines” rather than “ultra fine” or “microscopic detail”.
- Ask for many medium shapes (“each feather filled with a pattern”) rather than texture everywhere.
If you need very fine detail at full-page size, for example for a printed book, compare tools that output larger files. Our comparison of AI coloring page generators lists which ones state 300 DPI or 4K output.
Paper for pencils, markers and paint
- Colored pencils: ordinary copy paper works. A smoother, heavier paper takes more layers.
- Alcohol markers: they soak through copy paper. Print on cardstock and keep a spare sheet behind the page.
- Watercolor or brush pens: thin paper wrinkles when wet. Use the heaviest paper your printer is rated to feed (check its manual).
What the research says about coloring and stress
Small experiments found anxiety dropped after about 20 minutes of coloring, but a 2022 meta-analysis found mandala coloring was not clearly better than free drawing, and most studies only measure the minutes right after a session. Our summary of the studies links each one. Coloring is a pleasant, low-cost habit, not a treatment.