If you have ever sat down with a paint-by-numbers kit, you know the drill: You need to stay inside the lines; don’t let the blue bleed into the pink. I say, you are creating art, not a crime scene. So, why so many rules?

For years, I tried to seek solace in structured creativity. Many mandala colouring books and numbered canvases later, I discovered, this isn’t for me. I wanted the meditative benefits everyone raved about, but I always walked away feeling like a harried accountant balancing a ledger. “Five more blocks of paint number three, I better conserve it,” I would think, as I would paint. It felt stressful, not meditative.