Halloween Mandala Coloring Page

Round and round the holiday goes. This Halloween mandala coloring page takes the classic ring design and fills it with spooky favorites. A smiling jack-o'-lantern sits at the center. Around it spin rings of leaves, bats, candy corn and little scenes of ghosts, witch hats and pumpkins. Spider webs fill all four corners of the sheet.

It is a calm page for ages 8 and up, and adults enjoy it too. Because each ring repeats, your hands soon fall into a rhythm. It may take an hour or more, and it is easy to stop and pick up again.

Ring by ring

The center pumpkin is framed by a thin checkered band and two layers of pointed leaves. Next comes a wide ring with eight bats and eight small stars between them. A band of triangles leads to the boldest ring of all, where 16 candy corns point outward with a diamond and a dot between each pair.

The outer edge has 12 large round lobes. Each one holds a picture, and they take turns: ghost, witch hat, pumpkin. Look for the crescent moon at the top of the sheet. At the bottom, a ghost, a pumpkin and a hat stand in a row.

Halloween mandala coloring page color ideas

A good mandala needs a plan. Choose four or five colors, then use each in more than one ring so the page feels joined up. Purple, orange, yellow and teal make a strong set, with a pale lilac to rest the eye.

Try dark purple behind the candy corn so the bright stripes jump forward. The leaves around the center can go green or teal. For a softer look, use pastels all over and leave the background cream.

Another idea is a harvest set of rust, gold, olive and brown. It takes the spooky edge off and looks lovely all through fall.

Coloring tips for a clean result

Use a sharp colored pencil for the thin bands. Keep a little sharpener on the table, since the tiny triangles will dull a point quickly.

Turn the paper as you work around a ring. Your hand stays in its comfortable position, and your strokes stay even. It is also the easiest way to keep repeated shapes looking the same.

Color all the shapes of one kind before you switch. Fill in every candy corn band in yellow, then every band in orange. It goes faster, and you are less likely to miss one.

An old idea in a new costume

The word is much older than Halloween. A mandala takes its name from a Sanskrit word for circle, and it has long been used as a meditation aid in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Tibetan Buddhist monks make detailed mandalas out of sand and then destroy them, as a lesson that nothing lasts. The psychologist Carl Jung later drew circles like these himself and with his patients.

Ways to use it

Teachers can use this as a quiet activity after a noisy class party. It is also a nice way to talk about symmetry, since kids can fold a copy in half and see the two sides line up.

At home, cut out the finished circle and hang it from a thread as a window decoration. Two copies glued back to back will spin nicely in a draft.

Short on time? Color one ring per day. By the end of October you will have a full circle, and the slow pace is half the pleasure. Keep the sheet in a folder between sessions so the edges stay clean, and note which pencils you used so the next ring matches the last one.

More round designs

The cat mandala coloring page is a good follow up for animal lovers. For something with more fine lines, try the detailed mandala coloring page when you have a free evening.

Questions