Windsorite wants online community to keep busy, creative through colouring

As many are staying home looking for ways to keep busy and entertained,Kevin Blondin, a Windsor resident, has come up with a solution: Stay Home Colouring Fest, aninteractive colouring activity.

He launched the campaign this week on Instagram where he posts colouring pages daily drawings contributed by several local artists that users can screenshot, colour and design using the social media's story tools.

"Right now in this time of isolation, I think it's great and there's something for people to do," said Blondin. "They can do it on their own at home, but still take part in a collective experience where other people are doing the same thing as well and sharing it together."

He said the campaign is designed to give people at home something to do and exercise their creativity, but also shine a spotlight on local artists.

"During this time, we're not able to visit their exhibits and it's harder to support local artists," he said, adding that this activity allows artists to maintain their relationshipwith the public.

"We can colour their pages, tag them ... it's bringing traffic to theirpages," Blondin said. "It's been a really great initiative. I think a lot of people are having fun with it."

Christy Litster, one of the artists who contributed her artwork to the campaign, said she lost a few projects due to COVID-19.

She said this campaign has allowed her to give back to the community that has supported her for a decade.

"It's really neat to see their ... colour vision. So, that has been really rewarding for me," she said.

Litster also colours other artists' work and finds the activity fun.

Another participant, Syx Langemann, has been colouring the pages with his kids and said he likes that he's supporting local artists and feeling connected to a larger community.

"I think it's kind of fun to have a task that everyone else is kind of working on the same day or trying to work on," he said.

Blondin said he has curated at least two weeks worth of content for the campaign, but is looking into extending it for another two weeks after hearing from other artists who also want to send in their work and take part.