Our artistic instincts are developed from a very young age. Not long after we are able to control our fingers a crayon is inserted in our little fists and a piece of paper is placed in front of us. We are encouraged to make whatever marks we like and thus commit our first creative act. A broad smile comes across our face as we see the color recorded on the paper and the joy of creativity becomes a part of us. Mommy's applause let's us know that this joyful act has society's approval. After many happy efforts we budding artist have a desire to advance our drawings. Those joyful scribbles soon become harsher and angrier as frustration sets in. Then mommy demonstrates how to make a circle for a head and dots for eyes and the ever fascinating stick figure. Joy returns as the creative juices are set free. With time we learn to draw everything that is around us, house and family, grass and trees, even sun and rain. Then our imagination kicks in and we create fantastic drawings of monsters and dragons, princesses and pirates. We are well on our way to becoming artists, free and uninhibited, joyful and enchanted. At some point in this process some well meaning person notices our pleasure at creativity and offers us a coloring book. We use our well practiced scribbling technique to fill the page with color, blue hair, green faces, purple hands and sleeves, red, yellow and orange for the dress, shoes and legs and background. The lines of the preprinted drawings are often treated as mere suggestions of boundaries. We are then taught to keep our color within the lines and our artistic freedom meets its first test. Some of us agree and learn to control our color while others reject this attempt to inhibit their creativity. Our artistic philosophy begins to take shape. For those of us who continue to explore this avenue of creativity the coloring book experience is repeated over and over again. We are told that if we adopt this or that technique, or manipulate our pencils or brushes this or that way it will produce this or that effect. We are told that if we do this our work will be considered tasteful and if we do that it will be distasteful. As we accept or reject each suggestion, each lesson, we form our artistic philosophy. No two artists will make the same decisions, and the more we learn, the more we accept or reject, the more unique we become. Every time an artists puts a pencil to paper, or a brush to canvas, he must decide if he will paint within the lines or ignore the boundaries.....