Barbie Coloring Pages

Barbie has been a doll with a job for as long as most parents can remember, and that is what children ask for: not a doll standing still, but Barbie as something. These free printable Barbie coloring pages give her the job and the room that goes with it: a stethoscope and a kitten in a basket, a microscope and a wall of charts, a chef's hat and a plate of spaghetti. They suit a wide range of fans, from a five-year-old who wants the mermaid to a teenager who wants to redesign the ball gown.

The Barbie coloring sheets keep her moving. Barbie at work is a veterinarian checking a puppy, a doctor with a teddy bear patient, an astronaut floating by a space station, a scientist and a teacher at a blackboard of shapes and letters. On stage she sings as a pop star with spotlights and waving fans, and dances as a ballerina with roses thrown on the boards. Days out take her surfing, riding her horse through a meadow and roller skating along a boardwalk in headphones. At home she bakes cupcakes with a stand mixer and hosts a sleepover with two friends in face masks. The portraits show her facing forward with long wavy hair and hoop earrings, and full length in a denim jacket and ankle boots.

Princess, mermaid, fairy: the dress-up pages

These are the pages many children go to first. Barbie as a princess wears a tiara and a ruffled gown in a castle garden with a fountain and rose bushes. Barbie as a mermaid sits on a rock by the sea, with shells and a starfish on the sand and a lighthouse behind. Barbie as a fairy has butterfly wings, in a forest of mushrooms and flowers in front of a waterfall. The ball gown on the Dreamhouse staircase, coming down under a chandelier past framed portraits, usually gets treated as a Barbie princess page too.

A mermaid tail looks best in two close colors, teal and blue or pink and purple, blended where they meet. For more gowns and tiaras, the princess coloring pages are next door.

Designing her clothes

Barbie as a fashion designer sketches at her table, with a dress on a mannequin, rolls of fabric and a sewing machine. That page and the boutique, with its rail of dresses, shoe boxes and a tall mirror, are the Barbie fashion pages where the clothes are the whole point.

A good game with these: let the child design the fabric first. Stripes, polka dots, flowers or stars on the dress on the mannequin, then the same pattern on Barbie's own outfit in the denim jacket sheet, as if she had sewn it herself. The pair also suits teens and adults who grew up with the Barbie doll, because each page is really a fashion sketch waiting for a design.

Ken, Chelsea and the sisters

Ken appears in a portrait with short wavy hair and a collared shirt, driving a convertible with Barbie along a beach road, dancing with her at a prom under a disco ball, and riding bicycles past a windmill. For two children coloring together, the Barbie and Ken pages split neatly, one character each.

Chelsea has pigtails and bows and holds a big lollipop on her own sheet, builds a snowman with Barbie in winter coats, and has a tea party in the garden with a teapot, a cake stand and a cat. Barbie and her sisters go camping, toasting marshmallows by a tent and a camper van, a good page before a family camping trip or a backyard sleepover.

Barbie at Christmas and Halloween

For Christmas, Barbie decorates the tree by the fireplace, with stockings, a wreath and presents underneath. For Halloween, she wears a butterfly costume at a party with jack-o'-lanterns, bats and a bowl of candy. The snowman with Chelsea suits any winter afternoon. If holiday Barbie coloring pages are what you came for, the Christmas coloring pages and Halloween coloring pages have more for the same season, in the same line style.

Which pages for which age?

Quick to color above the grid keeps the sheets with big shapes for the hair and the clothes, which suit a four or five-year-old. They are the easy Barbie coloring pages to start with.

• A Ken portrait
• Barbie at a sleepover with her friends
• Barbie surfing a big wave

Lots of detail keeps the rooms: the kitchen, the classroom, the staircase, the tea party. Those hold an older child, or an adult with sharp pencils, for a whole afternoon.

• Barbie baking cupcakes
• Barbie in a ball gown on the Dreamhouse staircase
• Barbie and Ken riding bicycles

Coloring Barbie's hair

The hair is drawn as long separate strands, so it can be done in one yellow or in three. Color the whole mass light first, then go over every other strand a shade darker, and it reads as waves without any shading technique. Barbie is often blond, but nothing on the page fixes it: brown, black or red hair and any skin tone work on the same outline, and a child may want her to look like themselves. Pink is the obvious choice for the clothes, and nothing stops a purple ball gown.

A Barbie party, and printing

Press Add to pack under any drawing to set it aside, then print everything you picked as one PDF. For a birthday or a sleepover, give each guest a career page that fits them, the vet for the animal lover and the astronaut for the one who wants to go to space, and leave the gowns in the middle of the table. A few sheets stapled together make a small Barbie coloring book for the goody bag. The pack stays in your browser, so you can add the My Little Pony sheets or the unicorn coloring pages to the same print.

The sheets are free printable PDFs at 300 dpi, with no watermark and no account. They are A4: print at 100 % on A4 paper, or choose fit to page on US Letter; the printing guide has the rest. These are original fan-made drawings, not official artwork. The character drawer holds every other name children ask for.