Smiling Volcano Colouring Page

This volcano has a wide, friendly face partway up its slope, two round eyes and a small smile, sitting just under a wavy line of lava at the rim. Out of the top rises a thick puff of smoke made from several rounded lobes bunched together, sitting on a narrow stem. Down each side of the cone a stream of lava runs to the ground and spreads into a puddle, and each puddle has a curled swirl line inside it. At the bottom, two little pairs of rounded rocks sit off to either side, with a simple horizon line running behind the whole scene.

The cone itself is one big, open shape, so a child can colour it in a single sweep without worrying about staying inside anything fiddly. The lava streams and puddles are narrower and ask to be a different colour from the mountain, which is a nice chance to talk about which parts are rock and which parts are hot and flowing. The smoke cloud, with its several bumpy lobes, gives a bit more to look at closely, and the tiny rock pairs at the bottom are small enough to be a last finishing touch once the big shapes are done.

There is nothing frightening here, just a big smiling shape with a few smaller bits around it, so it works well as a first go at colouring something other than an animal. The mix of one large area and a handful of small ones makes it a good middling sheet: easy enough for a three-year-old to finish happily, with just enough detail in the smoke and puddles to hold a four- or five-year-old's attention a bit longer.