21 Nature Coloring Pages (Free Printable PDFs)

A place for every mood

Think of the set as a trip. Forest lovers can walk the forest path, where a fox sits beside a wooden arrow sign, then stop under the big oak tree to find the owl in its hollow and the squirrel on a limb. Warm weather fans can head to the sunset over the sea, with a half sun, two sailboats and a crab on the sand. The rocky coast has a striped lighthouse above crashing surf, plus a seal, gulls and a tide pool.

Colder scenes are here too. A buck with tall antlers stands among birch trunks in the winter forest, and a snowy owl sits on a branch in front of a big moon. The northern lights page has curtains of aurora over a frozen lake, with a small log cabin below and a fox looking up.

Some pages hold a lot of life in one view. In the rainforest, a toucan, a hanging sloth and a tree frog share one giant tree. The national park page has bison, a tent, a creek, an eagle and a thin waterfall on the far cliffs. In the river valley, an eagle flies above patchwork fields, a covered bridge and a red barn.

The seasons show up as well. A spring meadow and a wildflower field fill the front of the sheet with blooms, a cherry blossom tree hangs over a koi pond, and the autumn tree has a rope swing and a rake by a pile of leaves. Look close at the bird nest and you will count three hungry chicks and two blue eggs.

Who each page suits

• Ages 3 to 6: The autumn tree is the one to pick. Its round leafy clumps are large, and a child can color only those and stop.
• Ages 6 to 9: Try the forest path, the desert or the bird nest. Each has one main subject and clear spaces.
• Ages 9 to 12: The rocky coast, the waterfall and the mountain lake ask you to think about water and rock.
• Teens and adults: The river valley, the rainforest and the cherry blossom have many small parts. They make good long projects for a quiet weekend.

How to color nature coloring pages

Distance is the big secret. Things that are far away look paler and a little blue, while things up close look dark and sharp. On the mountain lake, use your palest colors on the far peaks and your strongest greens on the fir tree in front. The river valley works the same way. Bold colors in the front fields and soft ones near the mountains will make the page feel deep.

Water takes less color than you think. On the waterfall, leave the long strips mostly white and run a thin line of pale blue down each side. Keep the foam at the bottom bare. The mountain lake has the peaks mirrored in the water, so color them again in a lighter shade. That one step makes the lake look still.

Skies give a page its time of day. The sunset has bands that are ready for purple, pink and orange, with yellow close to the sun. Use the same warm colors on the waves so the sea seems to catch the light. On the northern lights page, try green and pink in the tall stripes, then go dark blue in the sky behind them.

Greens can get dull if you use just one. Put two or three in each tree, with a yellow green on top where the light lands and a blue green below. Rock looks better in mixed grays with a little tan. A quick test on scrap paper will save you from a color you do not like.

Flower pages need a plan too. On the wildflower field, give your strongest colors to the big blooms in front, then use small dabs for the far rows. The cherry blossom has a huge number of petals, so try two pinks and leave some bare.

Find these places on a map

Many of the drawings are based on real kinds of places, and a globe makes them easy to place. The saguaro on the desert page grows in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and northern Mexico. Bison like the ones on the park page still roam Yellowstone, and northern lights show up most often in far northern spots such as Alaska and Canada. Cherry trees and koi ponds are closely tied to gardens in Japan.

Stick a small paper flag on the map for each finished page. Kids tend to remember a place better once they have spent time on its picture. Older students can write one line about the weather in each spot, then compare it with the weather at home.

One tree, four seasons

This project takes a few sittings and shows a lot. Print the big oak tree four times. Color the first with pale new green, the second with deep summer green, the third with orange and red, and leave the last one nearly bare with white along each branch. The owl, the squirrel and the sheep can stay in every copy, or your child can decide who stays for winter.

Hang all four in a row and talk about what changed. Only the color did, yet each sheet feels like a new place. The autumn tree is an easier page for the same idea, so a younger child can work alongside with just two copies, one for fall and one for spring. Date the sheets and keep them in one folder.

Printing the set

Use the PDF button on a card for one scene. Download all, at the top of this page, gives you one file with every scene on its own sheet. Pages fit US Letter paper, and A4 users should turn on Fit to page. For the detailed pages, pencils on smooth paper will give you the cleanest edges. Press Color to fill in a scene on a screen instead.

Nature activities for home and class

Take a page outside. Bring the big oak or the forest path on a walk and look for what you can match, such as a mushroom, a fern or a bird. Check it off as you go.

In class, sort the scenes by habitat. Put the desert, rainforest, coast and mountain pages in four corners of the room and ask students which animals belong in each. Then ask what each animal would need to live there. A second round can sort the pages by season.

Writers can pick a scene and add four lines: what you see, hear, smell and feel if you stood there. The national park also works as a postcard. Fold the sheet and write a note on the back to a friend.

All of these are free for home, class and library use under our free use license. For more, look through our flower coloring pages and animal coloring pages.

Questions