Drawn Back to Childhood : More adults are returning to the comforts of crayons--from CSUN students to artistic parents.

When Seta Hagopian wants to have fun, she pulls out her Sesame Street coloring books and her bright red crayons.

But she’s learned that she must go to school if she wants to color with others, since her fiance thinks the whole thing is really weird.

Hagopian, after all, is 24, and studying at Cal State Northridge to be a teacher.

“I’ll wait until I don’t have too much homework and sit down to color,” she said.

Though Hagopian often colors alone, the student from Glendale has plenty of company among her contemporaries, according to Crayola maker Binney & Smith Inc.

The company started to suspect that adults were keeping crayons they ostensibly were buying for children. The insight came when Crayola tried to “retire” eight colors from the Crayola 64 Box in favor of brighter, bolder shades, said Tracey Muldoon Moran, a company spokeswoman.

Adults protested at company headquarters in Easton, Pa., in 1990, insisting that the likes of raw umber and maize must remain in the 64 selection. Demonstrators, claiming to represent groups such as the “National Campaign to Save Lemon Yellow,” and the “Raw Umber and Maize Preservation Society,” flew to Easton from New York, Virginia and Connecticut. Complaints flooded the phone lines. Grown-ups accused the company of tampering with their childhood memories.

Crayola’s maker realized it was onto something.

“It brings back a really cool time,” Moran said, “a time when you weren’t bogged down with things like, ‘Am I going to get to the dry cleaner before it closes?’ ”

Binney & Smith has been selling America on color for years, mixing the first red oxide pigments that were used in painting the classic red barn and supplying the carbon-black pigments that made automobile tires black. Any company in business since 1864 must be good at spotting trends.

But while crayon sales have jumped 45% since 1990, Binney & Smith isn’t really certain how many adults are putting crayons to paper. The company has noticed, though, a dramatic increase in the number of comments from adults on their consumer help lines.

To encourage those who might be shy about admitting they color, the company is sponsoring a coloring contest for adults that will be judged by children. First prize is a very mature $25,000 in gold and silver bullion.

There should be plenty of entries from Edie Pistolesi’s Cal State Northridge art course for teachers, in which there are many coloring grown-ups. Pistolesi compares the appeal of crayons to the warmth of comfort foods: “It’s like when you’re feeling really bad [and] you have this urge for something your mother used to make you--like pudding.” She also cites the failure of the educational system to provide artistic outlets for students as they grow older.

One thing is certain: For a simple activity, crayons can sure get complicated. In addition to the Crayola 64 Box and the even bigger 96 Big Box, coloring aficionados can now get crayons containing tiny capsules that explode, making drawings smell of coconuts, oranges or roses. There are crayons that glitter or glow. Some adults collect them all.

Coloring is familiar to grown-ups, observes Ann McGillicuddy-DeLisi, a developmental psychology professor at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. “When you want to be expressive, you have ready access to crayons.”

Adults returning to coloring tend to remember the only rule--stay inside the lines--though some rebel by scribbling outside them. But when Cathy Chesebrough, a 20-year-old student who works in a kindergarten, takes out her “Little Mermaid” coloring book, she outlines her work in black before adding color.

Cathy must have learned from her mother, Carol Chesebrough, who, at 54, plans to take her crayons with her on a cruise. “I outline the picture and I try to color-coordinate,” she said.

Mother and daughter date their pictures and sometimes color together. Every now and then Carol will go to the school where Cathy works and color with the kids. But she always brings her own crayons.

“They put everything in their mouths,” Carol said.

Pistolesi said she’s heard that kids eat orange more than any other color, though Crayola’s maker can’t confirm that. But the company insists it doesn’t matter, since Crayola crayons are nontoxic.

Though adults don’t usually eat crayons, some older folks believe they act as a bridge between generations.

Baby boomer Peter Bergman, 37, swears he began coloring again only because it was nice to do with his kids, ages 3 and 4.

Bergman, who lives in Costa Mesa, spends his days marketing computers. Some have coloring programs, but he likes good old-fashioned crayons too.

“Regressing to childhood gives you permission not to be a good artist,” he said. “You don’t have to be Van Gogh. You can just enjoy yourself.”