Sloth Coloring Pages

A sloth eats leaves, and leaves pay back so little energy that the animal has built its whole body around spending less. It digests a single meal for up to a month, lets its body temperature drift with the air around it, and covers roughly 40 yards in a day when it travels on the ground. Hanging costs it almost nothing, so hanging is what it does. These 54 sloth coloring pages start from that upside-down grip and work outward, and every design downloads as a free printable PDF sized for US Letter paper.

The cute sloth coloring pages lead the set, because that is what most people arrive looking for. Cute Baby Sloth Hanging From a Branch, Smiling Sloth Face Close Up and Baby Sloth Holding a Heart use thick outlines and large open shapes, so a three year old can fill them without fighting the lines. Kawaii Sloth With a Cup of Tea and Two Sloths Hugging on a Branch keep the same simple faces and give slightly older children more to do.

The detailed sheets move the animal into the rainforest and fill the space around it. Three-Toed Sloth Climbing a Rainforest Tree, Sloth Hanging Among Jungle Leaves and Vines and Sloth Reaching for Cecropia Leaves pack the page with foliage, and Sloth Mandala With Leaf Patterns breaks the body into repeating segments for adult colorists. Set aside an hour or more for any of those four.

Fur is the part worth planning before you pick up a pencil. Sloth hair grows from the belly toward the back, the opposite direction to almost every other mammal, because rain has to run off an animal that spends its life upside down. Those grooved hairs collect algae, so a wild sloth in the wet season turns visibly green. Lay a warm gray or tan base across the body, drag a muted green over the shoulders and back, then leave the face and chest clean. The coat reads as real that way instead of muddy.

The rest of the set covers the behavior that surprises people. Sloth Swimming Through a Rainforest River is accurate, since sloths swim far faster than they climb and will drop straight off a branch into water to cross it. Mother Sloth Carrying Her Baby shows the first months of a sloth's life, which it spends gripping its mother's chest. Sloth Sleeping on a Thick Branch, Sloth Waving From a Tree Trunk and Sloth Resting in a Canopy Full of Birds sit among the printable sloth coloring sheets, and the canopy scene breaks into far more separate areas than the other two.

Six sheets sit between those two groups. Sloth Asleep in a Hammock, Sloth Wearing a Knitted Hat and Sloth Wearing Round Glasses each pair the animal with a single prop. Sloth Holding a Hibiscus Flower, Sloth Hanging From a Leafy Branch and Sloth Climbing Down a Tree Trunk return to the branch.

Four newer sheets each give the animal a single object and little else. Sloth Sitting on a Tree Stump seats it on a grooved stump that hides everything below the waist, with a tuft of grass at either side of the base. Sloth Wearing a Cozy Scarf crosses a plain scarf at the throat and drops one tail to four square tassels. Sloth Holding a Round Balloon runs a single straight string from an empty balloon down to one raised paw. Sloth Under an Open Umbrella spreads a five-panel canopy across the top of the page, with both paws lifted and empty beneath it.

Another four keep that same one-prop framing. Sloth Wearing a Bow Tie builds the ribbon from five closed shapes and leaves every one of them empty. Sloth Holding a Slice of Watermelon sets seven inked seeds in the flesh and curves three open bands beneath it for the pith and the rind. Sloth Reading an Open Book leaves both pages completely blank, so a child can write or draw whatever the animal is reading. Sloth Wearing a Flower Crown rings the head with three open blooms, six petals on the middle one and five on each of the two beside it.

Four more sheets each hand the animal one object and leave the rest of the page clear. Sloth Holding a Slice of Pizza builds the wedge as a wide triangle pointing down, runs a band of crust across the top and scatters four round toppings over its face, three generous and one noticeably smaller. Sloth Holding an Ice Cream Cone crosses the cone with waffle lines along its whole length and stacks three fat turns of soft serve above it. Sloth Sitting on a Crescent Moon gives almost half the sheet to one long curve and tucks the back legs behind it. Sloth Wearing a Party Hat splits the hat into three closed shapes, the cone, the brim band and the tassel, and leaves the nose an open oval rather than the solid one the other sheets carry.

Six more sheets arrived together and keep that same one-prop framing. Sloth Holding a Beach Ball lifts the ball overhead on one raised arm, where four curved seams drop away from a small oval cap and cut the face of it into five tall panels. Sloth Holding a Cupcake stacks three rounded mounds of icing above a ruffled wrapper whose front divides into five tall panels. Sloth Holding a Gift Box runs one plain ribbon down the front of the box and a second straight across it, under a bow built from two loops, two short tails and a knot. Sloth Holding a Lollipop winds a single spiral from a tight center out to the rim of one round candy on a straight stick. Sloth Holding a Pencil drops the fur texture for plain outlines and splits the pencil shaft into three long strips. Sloth Sitting on a Big Mushroom is the only one of the six with a setting, fanning fine gill lines under a plain cap with grass standing along the ground.

A group of eleven sheets is the largest on this page, and each one hands the animal a single prop against bare paper. Sloth Holding a Birthday Cake stands three candles in a row on a flat oval top and crosses the front with three wavy lines and one straight one. Sloth Holding a Donut sets two circles at the hole and lets the icing line wave along the bottom. Sloth Holding an Apple leaves the fruit as one closed shape with no segment lines inside it. Sloth Holding a Toy Sailboat opens two sails off a central mast, the right one clearly larger, above a hull of stacked horizontal lines. Sloth Wearing a Chef Hat stacks a tall scalloped puff on a straight band and hangs three claws from each front paw. Sloth Wearing a Crown grows four balled points straight out of the head with no band beneath them. Sloth Wearing a Graduation Cap tips a square board into perspective and drops a loose tassel beside the face. Sloth Wearing Headphones arcs a banded headband into two rounded ear cups and runs a row of short ticks along the top of its grin. Sloth Holding a Camera coils the lens into a loose stack of rings, the one part of that sheet worth slowing down for. Sloth Holding a Magnifying Glass breaks the seated pose and lifts a double-rimmed empty circle up beside its face. Sloth Wearing a Big Bow on Its Head spreads two wide empty loops over a small knot, above a pair of closed, smiling eyes.

Five sheets published most recently keep that one-prop framing on bare paper. Sloth Holding a Big Cup wraps both paws around a tall plain cup that carries no handle and no spout, split by a single band near its base. Sloth Holding a Small Suitcase takes the case by its sides so the loop handle stands clear on top with daylight under it. Sloth Holding a Little Birdhouse cups a peaked roof and a tall arched doorway against the chest, under close fur hatching that runs right up to the roofline. Sloth Hugging a Square Cushion leaves the whole face of the cushion bare and carries some of the heaviest outlines on this page. Sloth Wearing a Wide Sun Hat sweeps a broad brim past both ears above a body left as one unbroken shape.

More slow, soft-edged line art: Pandas, Axolotl and Forests.