Analysis Of Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt And Coloring

Adult coloring books have become popular within American societies over the past couple of years. Even though adult coloring books have been around for decades, the books became an instant hit in 2012. In 2011, Johanna Basford, a Scottish artist, was asked to illustrate a children’s coloring book by publishing house Laurence King. Instead of designing a book for children, Basford decided to create her work for adults to use. After her book, “Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring BookColoring” was released in 2013, her work has sold around 2 million copies. In response to the popularity of these unique coloring books, art companies have begun to supply audiences with more genres, such as Star Wars coloring books, and art supplies.

This Cherokee themed coloring book contains a total of ten pages that individuals will be able to color. Within the book, the first three pages describe the Cherokee creation show while the last seven pages represent the seven Cherokee Clans. The first page is an illustration of the water beetle. According to the Cherokee creation story, the water beetle is the animal who is responsible for generating the land on earth. Before the water beetle had created land, the whole earth was covered in water and there was no place for all of the animals to comfortably live. The water beetle went under the water and brought with him mud that he laid out until it began to pill up and spread out. This island the water beetle created became known as earth. On the page, the beetle is drawn over geometric designs that represent the mud that is turned into the earth by the beetle.
On the second page of the coloring book is an illustration of the buzzard. After the water beetle created land, the earth was soft and wet. All the other animals were anxious to go to the earth and sent birds below to see if the land had dried yet. The buzzard was sent to make the land ready for the rest of the animals and by the time he flew over Cherokee country he was extremely tired. He flew low to the ground and his wings struck the earth which carved out valleys and created mountains. On the page, the buzzard is shown soaring over

This clan within the Cherokee Nation was known as a peaceful clan. What is interesting about this clan is that oftentimes orphans, prisoners, and others who did not belong to the Cherokee nation were adopted by the Long Hair Clan. On the center of the page is an image of a wasp mask with three other booger dance masks in the background. Behind all of the masks is wisp of hair that is representable of the Long Hair Clan. The ninth page is a drawing of a detailed wolf skull. In the Cherokee culture, wolves are considered the protectors. This image is meant to represent the Wolf Clan which is historically known as the largest of the clans. Behind the decorated wolf skull, is the repeated Cherokee silique for Wolf