The unicorn with flowers
The unicorn with flowers: a free printable coloring page, from age 4. A flower, a heart and three stars sit on her coat, to be colored one by one.
- Recommended age
- Ages 4 and up · 20 to 40 minutes
- Season
- Spring
Five marks on her coat
The markings are what make this sheet: the unicorn’s coat carries drawings laid on top of it, like stamps. A six-petalled flower with a circle at its center on the rump, a heart in the middle of the flank, a star on the shoulder, a smaller star near the thigh, and a fifth shape — another star — tucked into the mane, right beside the ear. For the rest, the unicorn stands in profile, one eye closed in a wink, mane and tail crossed by long lines that split them into locks.
The mark on the thigh
A unicorn with markings is no accident of drawing: it is a convention, the one of the little plastic horses children line up on a shelf, every one of them carrying a mark on the thigh. Here there are five, spread from ear to rump. The wink completes the portrait: she knows she is being looked at. At around four, children love these marks, because they give something precise to do in the middle of a large empty surface, instead of one more flat fill.
Going around without covering
The body is broad and easy, but the five markings are islands to work around: you have to color around them without covering them, then fill them in another color. That is exactly the exercise that becomes possible at about four, and out of reach before. The petals of the flower are a centimetre across, the arms of the stars end in points: a pencil stops there better than a marker. Around twenty areas, ten of them small, and nearly all of them gathered in the same place.
One color kept for the markings
A simple rule gives a fine result: all the markings in the same color, and that color used nowhere else on the page. A bright pink on an off-white body, for instance. The mane and tail can then take three or four shades without the page becoming confused, since the markings stay legible. Do them first, while the pencil is still sharp: after twenty minutes spent on the body, the lead is blunt and runs over the petals.
A word for the grown-up: ask your child to find all five markings before the pencils come out, pointing to them one by one. There is one hidden in the mane that almost nobody sees first time, and that little hunt is enough to make the page interesting before any coloring has begun.
Coloring pages that go with this one
More pages from the same theme, age or season — the ones you print right after.
