The little deer
The little deer: a free printable coloring page, from age 2. A standing fawn, its branched antlers, its plume of a tail and a spiral horn in the middle.
- Recommended age
- Ages 2 and up · 10 to 15 minutes
- Theme
- Animals
A fawn standing, antlers included
The fawn stands three-quarters turned to the left, on four slim legs each ending in a hoof marked with a single line. On its head, two branched antlers open like a fan, with several points on each side, and between them a spiral horn rises. The ears, almond-shaped, are drawn with a second contour inside. The eyes are large and round, fitted with lashes; the muzzle is black and the smile discreet. Behind, the tail lifts into a small plume. The sheet is white all around it.
A deer belongs to the woods
A fawn is a baby deer. Children meet it in books and sometimes for real, stopped dead at the edge of a forest road before it vanishes in a leap. What makes it recognisable are the antlers: only the males carry them, they grow every year and fall in winter, then grow back bigger. A fawn has none yet, or just two bumps. On this sheet it has a fine pair: it is a drawing, and it is allowed to run a little ahead of nature.
From age 2, leaving the antlers aside
The body, the neck and the head form one continuous surface: that is where the very young work, and it is two-thirds of the drawing. The antlers are made of narrow branches, harder to fill without going over — it does not matter, they look perfectly fine left white, or colored roughly. The four legs are wide at the top and taper downwards; the line marking the hooves gives a small area that is easy to get right. A two-year-old finishes the page in one sitting.
Two browns beat one
Take out two brown pencils instead of one: a light one for the body, a darker one for the legs, the underside of the belly and the outline of the muzzle. That difference is enough to give relief, and it teaches a child that two neighboring colors are not the same. The black hooves and muzzle are done with a fineliner; the plume of the tail stays white, as on real fawns. If you print the sheet for two children, one can do the antlers while the other fills the body.
A word for the grown-up: count the points of the antlers aloud before starting, touching them one by one. That little count gives the session a starting place, and the child begins with the head instead of circling round the page.
Coloring pages that go with this one
More pages from the same theme, age or season — the ones you print right after.
