Color in Sara Hickman’s An Eclectic Array of Texas Musicians

No stranger to rounding up Texas artists for a good cause, Sara Hickman had Willie Nelson, Robert Earl Keen, and more pull from her pop- and rock-infused catalog for a 2011 compilation. The benefit for the Theatre Action Project bookended the singer-songwriter's stint as the 2010 Official Texas State Musician. This year she fundraises for Rescue One More, an Austin nonprofit that aids child survivors of sexual abuse in Uganda, through her recently revived art form: illustration.

"When I retired from music in 2017, I was feeling very lost," says Hickman via email. "Because I'd been making music since I was 7 years old, it was a painful and confusing time for me. One day, while I was in Book People ... I noticed there was a coloring book on David Bowie, and one on Prince, but they didn't have any coloring books on Texas musicians! The light bulb went off."

The daughter of visual artists, Hickman studied art at the University of North Texas while establishing herself as a musician in Dallas, prior to moving to Austin in the Nineties. She says the first volume of An Eclectic Array of Texas Musicians Coloring Book, released in 2019, raised about $62,000 for different nonprofits. The newest edition – featuring artists like Megan Thee Stallion, Tanya Tucker, Marcia Ball, and Terri Hendrix, alongside biographical facts – was released in October.

Hickman has generously provided her drawings of a cool Alejandro Escovedo and the band Spoon (nestled in a spoon) for your at-home holiday coloring. Find copies of the full book at texasmusicianscoloringbook.com or at Thom's Market locations.

Our Recommended Coloring Page Soundtrack

• Holiday music blasts through the Austin area on Majic 95.5FM, as well as BOB 103.5FM's separate online-only Christmas stream (1035bobfm.com/bobs-xmas-channel). As for locally made tracks, I've recently come across holiday(ish) songs from Dewey Ivy ("Texas Christmas"), Other Vessels ("Closing on Christmas Eve"), Being Dead ("Boxes on the Ground"), and Patricia Vonne ("Christmas Is My Favorite Time of Year").

• The Chronicle tied up our music writers' favorite albums in a bow last week, as well as an @AustinChronicle Spotify playlist (The Chronicle's Favorite Austin Albums of 2023) with one track from each. Throughout the year, we also threw weekly capital-sourced track picks into our Paper Cuts playlist – starting with Farmer's Wife and wrapping with recent Glasshealer.

• Electric Lady Bird, for those trying to stay off Spotify, is an Austin Public Library streaming service that actually pays local artists to host their music. Among the 50-100 albums added annually, the current collection includes acts like Mobley, Twain, Deezie Brown, and Little Mazarn. Listen at atxlibrary.musicat.co.

• Hickman's coloring page subjects both released latest career landmarks in Alejandro Escovedo's La Cruzada (2021) and Spoon's Lucifer on the Sofa (2022). On Escovedo's page, the punky cat motifs are perhaps pulled from his 2001 album A Man Under the Influence. An elegant hand on Spoon's illustration sure looks like the cover of They Want My Soul (2014). Don't forget when the Austin rock standards covered the Beatles' "Christmas Time (Is Here Again)."