Choosing Colors When You Cannot Decide

Some days even picking a pen feels like a lot. The page is open, the pens are out, and nothing happens, because every color seems to ask for a decision you do not have the energy to make.

If that sounds familiar, you are in good company. Here are a few ways to let the choosing be easy, so the coloring can begin.

Three ways to skip the deciding

1. Pick with your eyes closed. Hold your pens in one hand, shut your eyes, and take the first one your fingers land on. Open your eyes and use it. There is no wrong color for the first shape.

2. Borrow a palette from the room. Look around for three colors that sit near each other: a mug, a window, a blanket, a plant. Find pens that come close. Nothing needs to match exactly. Colors that already live together tend to look good together on the page.

3. Use the neighbor rule. Choose one color, then reach for the pen that sits right next to it in your set. Then the next one over. Pens are often arranged so that neighbors blend well, and you let the order do the thinking.

A five-minute palette exercise

You need one page, whatever pens you have, and a timer if you like.

1. Choose a single small shape. A petal, a leaf, a corner of a pattern.
2. Color it with the first pen you picked up. Slowly. Notice how the ink sits on the paper.
3. Pick a second color that feels a little different, not opposite. Color the shape beside it.
4. Now pick a third that feels like a rest. A soft color, a pale one, or the one you almost never use.
5. Stop and look. Three shapes, three colors, and you made every choice. Which one do you want to look at longest?

That is the whole exercise. If you want to keep going, keep going. If five minutes was enough, that was enough.

A few things that make it easier

• Fewer pens, fewer decisions. Try pulling out only six or eight and putting the rest away for today.
• Let a color repeat. Using the same blue in three places on a page makes it feel settled, and settled is a nice thing to feel.
• Test on a scrap first. A corner of the page margin or a sheet of scrap paper lets you try a gel pen without any pressure.
• Light to dark, or dark to light. If you are stuck, order the colors by how bright they are and move along them one step at a time.
• There are no mistakes in color. A purple sky is still a sky. You get to decide what the page looks like today.

One question to leave with

When you picked up the pen today, which color did your hand choose first? Tell us in the comments if you like. There is no right answer, and we would love to hear which colors keep you company.

If today is heavy, you do not have to color at all. If you need to talk to someone right now, call or text 988, any time, day or night. You can also find more support on our resources page.

Want to color along? See the books or visit the channel page.