Rainbow Coloring Pages
16 free printable pages, ready to download and print.
Beautiful rainbow coloring pages featuring colorful rainbows, pots of gold, clouds, and magical rainbow scenes.
Create a Custom Coloring Page
Describe what you'd like and we'll generate it free, no account needed
Family-friendly only · 1 free per day
A rainbow is not an object in the sky. It is an angle, 42 degrees between the sunlight behind you and the raindrops in front of you, which is why you can never reach one and why two people standing side by side are technically seeing different rainbows. These rainbow coloring pages cover everything from a plain arc over hills to double rainbows, waterfalls, pots of gold and a unicorn mid-leap. Every design downloads as a free printable PDF sized for US Letter paper.
The gentlest starting points are Rainbow Arching Over Rolling Hills and Cute Rainbow With Smiley Face and Cloud Friends, both of which are large, open and quick to finish. For something with more in it, try Double Rainbow With Rain Falling and Sun Shining, Rainbow and Waterfall With Mist in a Forest Scene or Rainbow Over a Calm Lake With Reflection in the Water.
Rainbow pages are the standard first printable for a preschooler, and there is a good reason beyond the obvious appeal: the color order is fixed, so the sheet doubles as a sequencing exercise. Red on the outside, violet on the inside, every time. Once that is learned, Rainbow Ending at a Pot of Gold With a Leprechaun and Unicorn Jumping Over a Colorful Rainbow turn it into a story.
Where the arc lands is what separates these sheets from one another. Rainbow Over a Beach Scene With Ocean Waves, Rainbow Connecting Two Mountains With a River Below and Rainbow Over a Cottage Garden With Flowers in Bloom each give the bands a different landscape to meet, while Rainbow and Hot Air Balloon Floating in the Sky and Rainbow With Butterflies Flying Through the Arches put something in front of the arc. One technique note worth passing on: a real rainbow is translucent, and the sky and hills behind it stay visible straight through the bands. Wash the sky in first, then lay the rainbow colors over the top with light pressure. It gets much closer to what people actually see than leaving the bands opaque.
More in this direction: Unicorns, St. Patrick's Day and Waterfalls.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the order of colors in a rainbow?
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, remembered as ROY G BIV. Red is always on the outside of the arc and violet on the inside. In a double rainbow the fainter outer bow has the order reversed, with red on the inside, which is a nice detail to get right on that sheet.
Why is red always on the outside?
Because different wavelengths bend by slightly different amounts as they pass through a raindrop. Red light exits at about 42 degrees from the incoming sunlight and violet at about 40, so red reaches your eye from the higher drops and violet from the lower ones. The order can never change.
Are rainbow pages good for teaching young children?
They are among the best. The color sequence is fixed, which turns the sheet into a sequencing and color-naming exercise without feeling like one, and the bands are wide enough for a three year old to stay inside. The smiley-face rainbow and the plain arc are the two easiest here.
What is a double rainbow?
A second, fainter arc outside the main one, caused by light reflecting twice inside each raindrop instead of once. It always sits higher, is noticeably dimmer, and has its colors reversed. The band of darker sky between the two bows is called Alexander's band, and it is genuinely darker than the sky either side of it.