The unicorn clown
The unicorn clown: a free printable coloring page, from age 4. A jointed puppet with a long straight nose, a bow tie and a striped horn, waving hello.
- Recommended age
- Ages 4 and up · 20 to 40 minutes
- Themes
- Party time, Unicorns
- Season
- Birthdays
A puppet waving
The character walks toward us, one arm raised, the hand a mitten, as if waving to somebody at the back of the room. Its head is round: two already-black eyes, two accent-shaped eyebrows, a wide smile, and a long straight nose — a rectangle with rounded ends that sticks out to the side. Above it, a tilted striped horn, two ears, a lock on the forehead, a curly mane running down behind. Then the bow tie, a jersey with four vertical bands, round pants with two buttons, four balls at the joints, two big shoes and a wavy tail.
The clown, in separate parts
A clown, to a child, is first of all a set of signs: the nose that is not a nose, the shoes that are too big, the outsized bow tie. They are all here. What changes is the body. The arms and legs are made of separate segments, joined by good round balls: a wooden puppet, the kind with movable limbs. So the drawing says two things at once, the clown and the marionette, and it is noticed straight away. Yet there is not a single string on the page: this one walks by itself.
The most cut-up of the four
This is the most cut-up sheet of the four. The segments of the arms and legs are narrow, barely wider than an adult’s finger, and each joint ball is a closed circle to fill without biting into its neighbor. Add the four bands of the jersey, the thinnest of which is under a centimetre, the rings of the horn, the two buttons, the curls of the mane. You have to know how to slow down on those passages, which comes at about 4 or 5 — and count on a good half hour.
Pencils rather than markers
The costume lives on contrast: one half in one color, the other half in another, like circus clothes. Alternate the four bands of the jersey with a single pair of shades, put the pants in the color of the shoes, and keep the four joint balls strictly identical — that is what makes the puppet read at a glance. Take colored pencils rather than markers: the segments are narrow, and a fine point is easier to recover from than a fat stroke.
A word for the grown-up: suggest starting with the four joint balls, before anything else. The puppet assembles itself under your child’s eyes, and they understand at the same time why the arms are cut into pieces.
Coloring pages that go with this one
More pages from the same theme, age or season — the ones you print right after.
