Two Cartoon Dolphins Playing With a Starfish Coloring Page

Two cartoon dolphins face each other across a low mound of sand, tails resting on the ground and beaks tipped up, with a five armed starfish standing between them. Small dots pattern the center of the starfish and give the page its one piece of fine detail.

Symmetry is the appeal. Children who like order can mirror the two animals exactly, and children who do not can make each dolphin its own color and let the starfish tie them together. Either approach looks finished.

Give the starfish the strongest color on the sheet. Orange, coral, or deep red against two cool blue gray dolphins puts it in the middle of the composition where the drawing already wants your eye to go, and the sand can stay pale so it does not compete.

Sea stars are not fish, despite the name, and they have no brain at all. They move on hundreds of tiny tube feet along the underside of each arm, and a good many species regrow an arm they lose.