A two-masted sailboat slices through the waves with its sails full of wind, while seagulls cross the sky and a lighthouse rises from a rocky island behind. This sailboat coloring page has the feel of an adventure at sea, and it suits anyone who enjoys painting water, sky and wood in one scene.
The boat sits in the center with two masts, several sails of different sizes and fine rigging that crosses the drawing. The wooden hull sinks between rolling waves drawn in many layers of lines. In the sky you can see gulls and soft-edged clouds, and on the right a rocky island holds a lighthouse with its keeper's house.
It is designed for kids from ten to fourteen. The sails and sky are calm areas, but the waves and rigging need more patience and a well-sharpened pencil. It is a good page for learning to blend blues and greens and to notice how the color of water changes with the light.
Download the PDF for your paper size and keep the scale at one hundred percent. The boat's rigging is very thin, so normal or high quality keeps it from disappearing. Medium-weight paper lets you stack layers of blue and green without showing the grain.
Color the waves with three shades of blue and one teal, pressing harder in the troughs and lighter on the crests. The sails can be white with gray shadows, or carry colored stripes for a racing yacht. The lighthouse looks great in red and white, and the sky can glow orange if you imagine a sunset.
The lighthouse in the background is a great focal point. Color it off-white with red bands and add a small yellow light at the top, ringed by a very soft halo. To make it look far away, use slightly duller colors than on the boat, which sits in the foreground. If you choose a twilight sky, the lighthouse light becomes the star and the sea takes on a properly nautical mood. Leave a few white streaks on the water near the hull to suggest foam, since that tiny detail ties the boat to the sea.
Follow the direction of the lines with curved strokes and use several blues: darker in deep areas and lighter on the crests. Leave a few spots of bare paper at the top of each wave as foam.
Traditional sails are white or cream, but racing yachts and sport boats can have bright colors. If you keep them white, add soft bluish-gray shadows so they look filled by the wind.
Yes. It can accompany a unit on navigation, seas or lighthouses. Each student can mark the boat's route on a map, name the ship, and write a three or four sentence log entry.
