The Palace Museum is again inviting people to another coloring activity after it uploaded on its official Sina Weibo account on July 19 three white and black patterns of the palace's decorations, which are often seen on traditional Chinese architecture.
The invitation to color was posted under the tag, "Color the Forbidden City," as a follow-up to the best-selling coloring book for adults, Secret Garden.
The organizer of the activity said it will take about a week for one to finish coloring the new collection, which has three levels of difficulty.
The organizer added that the Secret Garden, which sold more than 25,000 copies on e-commerce platform JD.com by June 18, inspired them to create "Color the Forbidden City."
The China Daily reported that as of July 22, 9:30 a.m., the original thread was reposted 2,828 times and commented on 525 times, as Internet users urged The Palace Museum to release a book of patterns to color, just like the Secret Garden.
Guo Ting, who maintains the official Sina Weibo account of the museum, said that the museum has always wanted to introduce to the public the museum's color and architecture, and with the coloring activity, the museum hoped that its interactions with Internet users will deepen as well as enable the public to learn more about architectures in the Forbidden City.
"The Palace Museum thought about publishing colored photos of architecture in the Forbidden City as early as 2008, because they are aesthetically pleasing, but our thoughts back then were not as 'fashionable' as the coloring idea today. Since last month, with the popularity of the coloring book, our team thought about trying it with patterns found on architecture," Guo said.
Guo added that they are discussing with the publishing department of the museum the possibility of releasing a coloring book.
The museum announced that everyone is welcome to submit their work through Sina Weibo until July 31, as prizes await the best three entries that will be selected through a public poll.