Rocky Coast Coloring Page

Waves meet stone on this rocky coast coloring page, and a tall lighthouse keeps watch over it all. The tower stands on a green headland at the upper right, with two bold stripes, a railing and a lantern room at the top. A small keeper's house sits next to it. From there, broken rock tumbles down to the sea, and white surf piles up in big puffs along the shore.

Out in the bay, three sea stacks rise from the water with foam around their feet. A little sailboat crosses behind them, and a far shore with tiny firs closes off the view. In the front, a seal rests on a boulder. The rocks at the bottom hold a small tide pool, a crab, two starfish and a pair of shells. Gulls wheel over the water.

Difficulty and time

Kids of 7 and up will be comfortable with this medium page. The sea and sky are wide open, while the lighthouse needs a bit more care. Plan on 45 minutes. It is a good choice for a rainy day, or for any kid who has a soft spot for boats and the shore.

Rocky coast coloring page color ideas

Let the lighthouse be the star. Red and white stripes are the classic choice, though black and white or blue and white look great. Keep the rest of the scene cooler so that tower pops.

• Gray, tan and cream boulders, with no two neighbors the same
• Bands of aqua and medium blue for the sea
• Bright yellow in the lantern room
• Orange and pink for the starfish, gray for the seal

For a foggy morning, keep everything pale gray and pale blue, and make the lantern the only warm color. For a storm, darken the sky and the far water, then leave the foam stark white.

Rock and surf tips

Give every boulder a light side and a dark side. Pick where the sun sits, say the upper left, and shade the lower right of each rock. It takes one extra minute per rock and adds a lot of weight.

Curve your strokes along the top of each sea band. The long lines will suggest swells rolling in toward the land.

Keep the lighthouse crisp with a ruler edge or a sharp pencil. Straight, clean lines stand out against all that rough stone. Colored pencils give the best control on the small railing posts.

Tide pools up close

The little pool at the bottom of this sheet is based on a real thing. Tides happen twice a day, every day. At Acadia National Park in Maine, tide pools are hollows in the rock that trap seawater when the tide goes out. The best time to explore is the window from 1.5 hours before low tide to 1.5 hours after it. Rangers ask visitors to stay on the rocks and not wade in, because these animals are fragile. The park's tidepooling guide has more safety tips.

Beach bag activity

Try a seek and find. Call out items such as a sailboat, a shell or a chimney, and let your kid race to point at each one. In the classroom, students could write a day in the life of a lighthouse keeper. What would you see from the top? What would you do in a storm?

The keeper's house is a small place to have fun. Try a cream wall and a red roof to match the tower, and add yellow windows if you want an evening feel. Green grass and a few bright flowers on the headland give relief from all the gray rock. The small sailboat can carry the same red, which ties the far side of the bay back to the lighthouse.

More from the shore

Warm up with the sunset over the sea coloring page. The whale coloring page dives into deeper water, and the crab coloring page gives that small rock dweller a page of its own.

Questions