PINK was my least favorite color as a child. And now, it carries a different significance in my life.

It is a symbol for breast cancer awareness. To remind us of the strength of breast cancer fighters and survivors. And it was my Mum’s favorite color – she was the biggest fighter I knew before she lost her own battle to breast cancer, just before the birth of my second child.

I’ve taken on a few “coloring with only one color” or “using every supply” challenges before, but this time, the art was personal.

So as I hunted through my many colored pencils and markers to gather all my pink supplies, I wanted to dedicate this art to anyone who has ever been impacted by breast cancer. And I wanted to dedicate this video to my Mum.

PLEASE NOTE: This post contains affiliate links and I may earn a commission if you click them (at no cost to you). I have personally purchased all of the pencils used in this review, except a few that were given to me in the past for other videos/articles. These include Black Widow Monarch, Arrtx, Derwent Chromaflow, Winsor & Newton. None of these brands are associated with this review in any way.

The Coloring Page

Because this was a special project, I wanted to create my own coloring page that represented the journey that so many cancer fighters like my Mum have been through.

Mum’s first cancer diagnosis came in 2005, while I was still in school. The news shook our whole family, and the rollercoaster of treatment, appointments and uncertainty began. I remember one of the biggest challenges for Mum was losing her hair. It felt like she was losing part of her identity. The wigs were itchy and uncomfortable, and it was the first time, as a child, that I ever noticed her lacking confidence.

But Mum was always beautiful. And her joy and hope was contagious. So I created this page in tribute to her strength and joy – even without her hair.

I’ve made this coloring page available as a free gift when you join my email list. I’d love to see how you color this page too.

Mum’s Story

Back in 2016, after I’d had my first son and had started making coloring books, my Mum’s cancer returned again. I don’t know if it hurt more this time because I was now a Mum too, or if the reality of the whole thing was just finally sinking in. I found myself wanting to spend as much time as possible with her, and do whatever I could to support her through her journey. It was during this time that I created the “Coloring Through Cancer” adult coloring book.

Mum’s cancer came back again and again in the following years. It attacked in different ways and we never knew what to expect.

Shane and I moved in with my parents for a year while we were building our new house, along with Zac, who was just 3 at the time. During that time, Mum spent more time at the hospital than at home so Zac and I would take the hour drive to visit her every second day, not knowing if she would ever return home permanently, or if this was the new normal.

It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to face in my life. Learning to process the grief of the future while living in the uncertainty of what would happen next, trying to control every moment, every emotion, and not knowing how to handle any of it. It felt like a big mess and I knew that it would all make sense in the end, that one day I would look back and know how to process everything but in the moment, all I could do was take one day at a time. One moment at a time.

One phone call from the hospital at a time.

In 2018, I fell pregnant with my second child, Oliver and before we could say hello to Oliver, we said goodbye to Mum.

We had some pretty dark moments in our last week with Mum. But we had some incredibly special highlights as well. She made jokes with the nurses and had the whole room laughing. She was surrounded by her whole family, who sang her favorite songs with her while she rested and she got to spend time with each of her daughters and her grandkids.

And when I look back on all the chaos – the anxiety, the hospital visits, the dark and light moments – what I remember the most is Mum’s smile. Just like the highlights make an art piece, it was her smile and her joy that became the highlights of who she was, not her battle with cancer.

Coloring with Every PINK Supply – My Tribute

It’s time to make a start on this adult coloring page with every pink supply I own. I’ve gathered all my pink colored pencils, my alcohol markers, my water-based markers, my gel pens – and even my highlighters!

And as I’m doing this,  I’m finding it REALLY hard to actually find nice pinks. There are so many fluro and super bright pinks, and a lot of colors that I don’t think should really be considered pink at all. This made the art more challenging that I’d hoped, but it also gets me thinking…

What color exactly is PINK?

There are a lot of different interpretations of pink. And if this is a “one color challenge” we need to define our color a little more specifically. And yes, this is the perfect opportunity for me to talk about color theory – so bear with me!

There are many shades of pink. Just on Wikipedia alone, the basic definition of pink is PALE RED, then you’ve got a HOT PINK that’s a little more towards a magenta and a CHAMPAGNE PINK that’s actually kind of a pale orange. TANGO PINK and CONGO PINK are more like what I would call a salmon or coral color. And Pantone’s pink – which is what I typically think of when I think of pink. So I eliminated some pinks and based my selections on more of a magenta range of pinks here, really aiming between a red and a violet tone.

So maybe my definition of pink was wrong? Maybe this is more of a magenta challenge? Or a rose challenge? To figure it out visually,  I made a chart – a chart of acceptable pinkness!

I wanted to keep my range small, so I eliminated the pale reds and oranges and stuck to our magenta style pinks with a bit of a mix between red and purple, making sure that if it wasn’t on the chart, it wasn’t in the challenge and figuring this out took me a whole day!

As I continued, I realised ‘wait… I don’t have any darker pinks. Why don’t I have any dark pinks? What even is a DARK PINK? According to my chart – a dark pink is basically a burgundy, so I brought back some of the burgundy tones to give our picture some contrast.

And by now –  I’m finally ready to start coloring.

Tomorrow.

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I finally made a start on my face and immediately realised this was going to be harder than I expected. I knew in my mind that getting the values right is the key to making this work – by that, I mean making sure I get the shadows and lighting right. If I could put the shadows in the right place, and keep the right areas dark and light, the actual colors I used should matter less. But I was still finding myself second guessing every stroke, and I didn’t know how I’d ever get through every pencil and marker in my stash here if I kept going at this pace.

So I just had to trust the process, and at least I’d made a start.

Although pink was one of my least favourite colors growing up, I’m glad that you all chose this in my YouTube community poll for which color to choose next in my one color challenge series. Because I filmed the video in October, which is breast cancer awareness month, and I’d been wanting to film a video on this topic for a while, so the timing was perfect.

So, I’ve approached this page in a way I’ve never tried before. At first I was trying to control every single color. But I realized that I just couldn’t manage that. Instead, I wanted to find beauty in the chaos. So I decided not to worry about the colors and the hues. And to just separate the dark from the light.

From here, all I’ve been doing is creating a clear distinction between the dark and the light, and allowing everything else to be a chaotic mess of colors in between.

And somehow, through all the chaos, I think I’m finding something beautiful that I would never have found if I had tried to control every single color.

I manage to use every pink marker and pencil in this art challenge, even the neons! Letting go of the control and taking a risk with the colors allowed me to create something I probably would never have created if I was aiming for perfection. In fact, I think this is one of my favorite pieces I have ever created.

This has been a difficult journey for my family, but I know my Mum would be smiling to think that even one other person could find hope and joy in her story. She always loved to bring joy to others and she was a generous and selfless person – that’s the Mum I will always remember.

Coloring Through Cancer – Now Available for FREE

I created the book “Coloring Through Cancer” with many of the quotes that Mum helped me develop. Even as her cancer progressed to stage 4, she never stopped sharing her joy and strength with the people around her, and she was so proud of what I had created.

But the book wasn’t just for mum. I gave the digital version to many cancer centres and hospitals for free, and made donations when I could to the organizations who were working to find a cure for people like Mum. Over the past year, I’ve been thinking about this book and have wanted to extend that offer beyond the hospitals, making it available to everyone.

So I’ve made the Coloring Through Cancer PDF completely free now on my website. The goal of this book was always to get it into as many hands as possible, and to help as many people as possible, and I have loved the stories I’ve already heard from people who have been encouraged or have found coloring helpful in some of their darkest days. If you know someone who is going through this journey, please feel free to share it and print a copy for them.

And I’ve now donated all the past profits from the sale of this printable book to help further cancer research here in Australia as well.

In case you’re wondering, with the 187 pencils, 91 markers and 6 gel pens I was using, I needed some help to keep them organized! So here’s the Swatch Kit I use for projects like this to see all my colors and keep my sets sorted. Enjoy!