Gingerbread Man Running Coloring Page

Legs wide apart, arms thrown out, one foot kicked up behind: this cookie is halfway through a stride and nothing on the page is vertical. The tilt is what makes it work. Set beside the other sheets in this collection it reads as the one that got away.

Three open circles run down the middle of the body, and a short zigzag of icing is drawn on each arm and across each foot. Beyond those five marks the cookie is empty, so there is a lot of white to fill and very little to stay inside.

The face keeps it cheerful rather than frantic. Two filled dot eyes and a broad curved smile, with the rest of the head left clear.

The outline here is a little looser than elsewhere in the set, with a doubled line along the raised foot where the drawing was made quickly. On paper it reads as motion rather than as a mistake, and it gives the sheet a hand drawn quality the tidier pages do not have.

The figure is angled across the middle of the paper with clear margins at the top and bottom, which leaves room to draw in a kitchen window or a fox if anyone knows the story.