Animal coloring pages

Animal coloring pages here run from pets and farm animals to creatures from far away: a kitten batting a ball of yarn, a puppy among the daisies, a sleepy koala, penguins sliding down a slope on their bellies, and an owl family in a tree hollow.

Some are simple, like the baby elephant splashing in a puddle or the koala on its branch, with one big animal and hardly anything around it. Others, such as the farmyard by the red barn or the hedgehogs in the autumn leaves, have more for older kids to fill.

Fur and feathers look more alive when colored in short strokes that follow the way they grow, rather than flat back and forth. A light brown first, then a darker one along the edges, gives a hedgehog or an owl a rounder shape.

Many of the animals come from stories: the fox under the crow’s branch, the tortoise passing the sleeping hare, the three little pigs and their houses. The QR code on the printed sheet opens the fable or fairy tale, ready to read aloud once the coloring is done.