Teenager creates Optimistic Coloring Book to inspire children

Local teenager Olivia DuPont has recently launched “The Optimist Coloring Book”, a 28-page coloring book for children filled with illustrations inspired by her favorite inspirational quotes.

Olivia, who has just finished her freshman year of high school, has always loved optimistic quotes and has been collecting them since she was a little girl. Last summer, the artist was a little bored due to all of her free pandemic time and started working on creating a coloring book. Her dream was to create a charitable book to provide some joy and happiness to children.

Illustrated quotes include “Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow” by Helen Keller with a drawing of a young woman looking to the sky and one from her favorite author Maya Angelou: “Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.” The page is her favorite in the book with a mother hugging her child, surrounded by flowers.

The cover of her book was inspired by the Del Mar Fairgrounds with two friends holding hands by a ferris wheel with the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote: “The only way to have a friend is to be one.”

The optimistic, smiling Olivia has been involved with Junior Optimists for three years. She is the founding and incoming president of the Junior Optimist Club at her school and is the incoming lieutenant governor for the Del Mar-Solana Beach Junior Optimist Club.

Last year, she enlisted four fellow Junior Optimists to contribute drawings for her personal project.

A page from the Optimistic Coloring Book by Olivia DuPont.

(Courtesy)

Audrey Eller, a member of the Del Mar-Solana Beach Optimist Club, loved the book and helped Olivia take her personal project one step further by getting the coloring book into hospitals. In May, digital copies were distributed to children at Rady Children’s Hospital and Ronald McDonald House.

“I have heard nothing but wonderful comments from staff and patients,” said Lisa Tweed, a certified child life specialist at Rady Children’s Hospital. “Everyone loves the coloring book!”

The book got a thumbs-up from Ryan, a five-year-old patient, who said it was “super cool” as well as 14-year-old patient Julia: “When I was in the hospital the coloring book helped me feel calm and gave me something fun to do.”

As part of the Del Mar-Solana Beach Optimist Club’s Childhood Cancer Campaign they also sponsored the printing of 310 copies of the book as a gift to the children who are participating in the OAK (Oncology and Kids) summer camp, “Camp Reach for the Sky.”

In addition to drawing, Olivia’s interests include acting, dancing and singing—including opera. She sang “The National Anthem” at her middle school graduation and at a San Diego Gulls game and was the featured musical entertainer at the 2019 Action Changes Things gala to benefit an orphanage in Mexico. She is also a straight-A student.

Olivia hopes to make more volumes of inspirational coloring books and get them published in order to reach more children, with the proceeds of sales going to support children’s charities.

“I’m very blessed,” she said. “I really want to inspire others and make the world a better place.”

To learn more, visit optimistcoloringbook.com.