Bare November Tree With Patterned Bark Coloring Page

Here is the tree after the leaves have gone. The trunk rises from a spread of thick roots at the bottom of the page, and its surface is grooved with long lines that follow the curve of the wood, giving you a dozen narrow strips to shade at different weights. Above the first fork the branches divide again and again until they finish in a fine net of twigs that reaches almost to the top corners of the paper. Counting is hopeless up there, which is the point: the crown is mostly white paper, and whatever you put behind it becomes the sky. Five leaves still hang on short threads, spaced out among the lower branches, and they are the only shapes on the sheet that invite a warm color. That contrast is worth planning. A gray or violet wash across the twigs with five bright leaves left burning in it says late November far better than coloring everything brown. The line weight is deliberately light in the upper branches, so press gently there. Younger children can skip the twigs entirely and work only the trunk and roots, which hold plenty of area on their own.