Flying Bat With Wings Spread Wide Coloring Page

Both wings are at full stretch on this bat, reaching out level to either side so the drawing spans the width of the sheet. Each wing is one open membrane with a scalloped lower edge, divided into panels by thin finger lines that run from the shoulder out to each point. Those panels are the useful part for a colorist, because they turn one big shape into five or six smaller ones without adding any fiddly detail.

The body between them is round and soft. Two short rounded ears sit on a head barely separated from the chest, the eyes are two plain dots, and the mouth is a single curved line. Two small feet with tiny toes hang below the belly.

Nothing surrounds the animal. The bat sits in the upper half of the paper and the whole lower half is left bare, which is a lot of empty space but also an obvious invitation: a night sky, a moon, a rooftop or a second bat can all go in underneath without crowding anything.

For a young child this is close to ideal. The shapes are large, the outlines are even and unbroken, and there is no small interior work to lose a crayon in.