Lion Coloring Page
About This Coloring Page
A lion is usually the first animal a child names when you ask them to name a wild one. It is in every picture book, on every alphabet chart, and it makes a noise they can do themselves, which matters more than adults tend to remember. A page a child already has strong feelings about is a page they will sit at for longer.
The mane is the whole reason this drawing is worth colouring. It is the only part of the page that is a texture rather than a shape — a ring of soft points that can be filled solid, striped, or worked in short strokes running outwards. That is a genuine artistic decision, and it is small enough that a four-year-old can make it without help.
The rest of the scene is deliberately calm. A rock underneath, two tufts of grass, and a flat-topped acacia overhead. It gives the lion somewhere to be, which is what turns an animal into a picture, without crowding the page with pieces that compete with the mane for attention.
Skills Practiced
How to Use This Coloring Page
- Do the mane last. Colouring the face and body first means the mane can be matched to them, and it saves the most interesting part for when a child has warmed up.
- Try short strokes going outwards. Rather than filling the mane in solid. It is the first time many children see that the direction of a stroke changes what a drawing looks like.
- Compare the lion to the rock. Which is bigger, and how do they know. Size talk is easiest with two things already side by side on a page.