Snake Coloring Pages

A snake is one long line that can go anywhere on the page, which is why artists have drawn them in spirals and knots for thousands of years. These snake coloring pages show both sides: real snakes in the places they live, and snakes turned into pattern.

The real snakes come first. A python lies coiled on a warm rock, a slender tree snake drapes over a leafy branch, a cobra rears up from a woven basket between clay pots, a rattlesnake coils in the shade of a saguaro with its rattle raised, a sea snake winds through coral, a banded milk snake crosses a bed of fallen leaves, and a hognose snake burrows into the sand with only its upturned snout showing. A vine snake stretches over a jungle stream, a snake swims across a lily pond, another crosses the desert dunes leaving a curving trail, one basks on a driftwood log by a lake, and a snake's head fills a whole page, every scale on its face drawn.

Then the snakes in unexpected places: in a hollow log under mushrooms, on a greenhouse bench among the ferns, crossing a garden path between the roses, peeking from a cracked flower pot, exploring a potting shelf full of trowels, curled inside a Halloween pumpkin, sharing a lily pad with a frog and sleeping in the barn beside a cat. A baby snake hatches from its egg, another sheds its old skin along a branch, and a keeper stands in a field with a boa draped on his shoulders. A snake charmer plays his flute to a cobra, and another cobra rears in front of carved temple walls. The pattern pages finish the set: a snake coiled into a spiral mandala, a knot of intertwined snakes with heads pointing every way, a snake covered in geometric diamonds, a snake skeleton spiral, two snakes mirrored on one branch, a snake coiled in a basket, and a border of snakes and lotus flowers.

Scales, and how to color them

Every scale on these pages is drawn, which can look daunting, but there is a trick. Don't color scale by scale. Color the whole snake in one light color first, in long strokes that follow the body, then go back and add the pattern on top: the blotches of the python, the bands of the milk snake, the diamonds of the rattlesnake. The scale lines will still show through, and the page will take half the time.

For a snake that looks round rather than flat, color the belly side a little lighter and the top of the back a little darker, all along its length. That single shading turns a flat ribbon into a body.

Red touch yellow

The banded milk snake on the leaf page is a famous case of disguise. It copies the red, black and yellow bands of the venomous coral snake, so that predators leave it alone, even though it is harmless. Some American children learn a rhyme to tell them apart, "red touch yellow, kills a fellow; red touch black, friend of Jack", though it only works for snakes in North America and should never be used to handle a real one.

On the page, it makes a good exercise: color the milk snake with the bands in the harmless order, red next to black, then decide how the coral snake would look instead.

Open curves and tight coils

Scales make most snake pages detailed, but a few keep the snake as a single open curve on plain ground, and those suit a young child. Quick to color, above the grid, gathers them:

• Hognose snake in the sand
• Two snakes on a branch
• Snake crossing the desert dunes

The densest are the cobras and the pattern pages, where every scale of a hood or every ring of a spiral asks for its own color. They suit a teenager or an adult who likes a slow page. Lots of detail opens on:

• Cobra in an ancient temple
• Spiral snake mandala
• Cobra rising from a basket

Snakes as symbols

Few animals appear in as many old stories. The ouroboros, a snake biting its own tail, stood for endless cycles in ancient Egypt and Greece, and the spiral mandala on these pages is its cousin. The staff of Asclepius, a single snake around a rod, is still the symbol of medicine on ambulances and pharmacies, because shedding skin looked like renewal. In Chinese astrology the Snake is one of the twelve zodiac animals, linked to wisdom, and in Hindu art the cobra shades gods with its hood. The border of snakes and lotus flowers draws on that tradition. Coloring a pattern page is a good moment to tell one of these stories.

Snakes are not slimy

Many children expect a snake to feel wet. It doesn't: its skin is dry and smooth, a bit like a leather belt. A snake never blinks either, because it has no eyelids; a clear scale covers each eye instead, and that scale comes off with the rest of the old skin when the snake sheds, as on the branch page. Snakes smell with their tongue, flicking it out to collect scents from the air, which is why so many of these snakes are drawn with their tongues out.

Those three facts make a good start for a nature class or a reptile report: color the snake, then write one thing about it underneath.

Printing the snakes

Every snake downloads free as a 300 dpi PDF drawn for A4. Print at 100 % on A4; on US Letter pick "fit to page", which shortens the drawing by about six percent and keeps the whole tail. The printing guide walks through the dialog in each browser. Add to pack gathers a set of pages into one file for a reptile unit or a rainy day. The frog coloring pages have the snake's favorite neighbor, the dinosaur coloring pages more scales, and the mandala coloring pages more spirals.