Pirate Coloring Pages

Every child who has worn a paper eye patch knows the pirate story by heart: a ship, a map, a chest buried on an island. These pirate coloring pages give them the whole cast and the whole ship, from the captain at the wheel to the monkey swinging from the cabin lantern.

The crew comes first. A bearded captain in a plumed hat steers the ship's wheel, a sailor coils rope with a parrot on his shoulder, a young pirate climbs the rigging toward the crow's nest, a lookout scans the sea through a spyglass, a cook stirs a pot in the galley, two pirates haul a net full of fish, and a whole crew rows a longboat toward a palm island at sunrise. In the evenings they sing around a lantern with an accordion and a fiddle, and a pirate girl dances on a barrel while the others clap. On shore, a pirate with a wooden leg sits on the quay with his parrot.

The ship has its own pages: sailing between two sea stacks, tossed in a storm of curling waves, anchored in a cove with a rope ladder down to the water, and seen close up at the wheel, the galley table, the captain's cabin, the cannon with its stack of shot, a barrel of apples beside a coil of rope, and a carved mermaid figurehead at the bow. The Jolly Roger flies from the mast. Treasure is everywhere: a chest spilling coins onto a beach, another sunk among the coral with a sea turtle swimming past, a treasure hunt in the dunes with shovels and a fresh hole, and a sea chest with a hat, boots and spyglass on top. The sea brings its creatures: a mermaid on an anchor, an octopus draped over a rowing boat, a kraken curling around a lighthouse, a hermit crab in a thimble hat, and a crab band at a tide pool. For the youngest, a chibi pirate hugs a tiny chest, a young pirate rides a dolphin, and a pirate shares fish with a penguin. A busy harbor, a ship in a bottle, a compass mandala and a border of ropes and starfish complete the set.

Real pirates and storybook pirates

The pirates children picture come mostly from books and films. Treasure Island, published by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1883, gave us the treasure map with an X, the parrot on the shoulder, the pirate with a wooden leg and the chest buried on an island. Real pirates rarely buried treasure: they spent what they took, which was usually cloth, sugar, tools and food rather than gold.

The real golden age of piracy lasted only a few decades, around 1650 to 1730, mostly in the Caribbean. Famous names like Blackbeard, who wove slow-burning fuses into his beard to look frightening, and the two women pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read sailed in those years. The flag was real too: pirates flew the skull and crossbones to scare a ship into surrendering without a fight.

How a ship is steered

The big wheel on the captain's page does not move the ship directly. It is connected by ropes and pulleys to the rudder, a flat board at the back of the ship under the water. Turning the wheel swings the rudder, and the rudder pushes the back of the ship to one side, so the front turns the other way. The crow's nest at the top of the mast, where the young pirate is climbing, was the highest lookout on board, and a sailor up there could see several miles farther than anyone on deck.

Colors for a pirate ship

• Wood: the hull, deck and barrels in warm browns; a darker brown line along each plank makes the deck look real.
• Sails: cream or off-white, a little gray in the folds.
• Pirate coats: deep red, navy or black, with gold buttons.
• The Jolly Roger: black flag, white skull.
• Treasure: yellow and orange for gold coins, white for pearls, bright red, green and blue for jewels.
• The sea: turquoise near the beach, deep blue far out, white for the foam on each wave.

Quick pirates and crowded decks

The simplest pages have one big figure and open sea, like the pirate on a dolphin and the treasure hunt in the dunes. Quick to color, above the grid, begins with:

• Riding a dolphin
• Treasure hunt

The detailed pages are full of ropes, planks and rooftops, like the harbor and the captain at the wheel. Lots of detail begins with:

• The harbor
• Captain at the wheel
• Songs on deck

A treasure hunt at home

Pirate pages make a treasure hunt. Color the treasure chest page and hide it somewhere in the house or garden, then color a few other pages as clues: the ship's wheel for the front door, the galley table for the kitchen, the captain's cabin for a bedroom. On the back of each, write where to find the next one. The last clue leads to the chest, with a small treat inside. The border page, with its ropes and starfish around an empty oval, makes a good treasure map: draw the house inside it and mark the spot with an X.

Printing a pirate crew

Every page is a free PDF drawn on A4 at 300 dpi. A4 prints at full size, and on US Letter "fit to page" makes the drawing about six percent smaller so the mast stays on the paper. The printing guide shows where to find it. Add to pack puts a whole crew into one file. The sea continues in the ocean coloring pages, the shark coloring pages and the beach coloring pages, and another pirate crew sails in the One Piece coloring pages.