Meryl's Notes Blog

Almost two years ago, I wrote an entry on five common site annoyances. Douglas emailed me about the entry, specifically the “Print This and Use It” annoyance. He gave me food for thought. Maybe it’s not as big as an annoyance as I originally thought. After all, children can get a diversity of pictures to color from the different Web sites.

Maybe it’s the fact I come from a family of non-artists. My kids aren’t big on coloring. Here’s what Douglas had to say.

“I offer coloring pages through the Creative Commons for kids to color. Having four kids of my own, I have noticed that they enjoy having physical pages to hold. Even if they color the image online using software they always ask to have the image printed out. So when I decided to make my coloring page blog I decided to offer the pages as hires PDF files (as opposed to jaggy GIF files) available for downloading and printing. So far response has been favorable.

“Not everybody has the resources to have online coloring pages (most of the free java coloring apps are old and clunky), and besides, the web has always been about publishing for me - getting my work out there for people to enjoy. Offering my files for download and printing off my webpage is an inexpensive way to reach more people. The web has many paperless purposes, but for me it represents a way to bypass the printing press and reach people directly in their homes. And a coloring book that can be reprinted over and over again is a modern miracle.”

What do you think?