Western Coloring Pages: 30 Simple Old West Ranch Designs with Ponies, Boots, a Covered Wagon and Cactus

These western coloring pages are the simplest of Old West pictures: heavy, even outlines, rounded cartoon shapes and plain white space around nearly every subject. Most pages hold one thing drawn large, a pony, a hat, a horseshoe, a tortoise, so there are few tiny gaps to fill and a chunky crayon can stay inside the lines. The cover doubles as a contents page, listing all 30 titles in two numbered columns under a waving ranch girl.

What fills the 30 pictures

• Ranch kids (9 pages): the children from the FAQ, each with a big hat and boots, doing one clear job such as feeding, brushing, riding or mailing a letter.
• Ponies on their own (03 and 16): a smiling pony in a saddle with a flower at its feet, and a pony drinking from a wooden water tub.
• Things to color (12 pages): stitched boots (05), a hat and scarf on a stool (06), a horseshoe tied with flowers and a bow (07), a lasso hung on a fence post (09), a covered wagon (10), a campfire with a log bench and kettle (13), the star on a hat (14), a ranch gate with a horseshoe on it (19), a guitar with a camp stool and bedroll (20), a picnic basket, apples and hat on a checked blanket (22), a saddle on its stand with a coiled rope (23), and a lantern, tin cup and blanket roll on a crate (28).
• Desert life (08, 15, 21, 24 and 25): a cactus garden in bloom, a tumbleweed rolling past rocks, a canyon trail between saguaro and buttes, a long-eared jackrabbit next to a prickly pear, and a desert tortoise with a patterned shell.
• Buildings (11 and 30): a small barn with X-braced doors and hay bales, and a log cabin at night with a sleeping puppy.

How simple is simple

Pages like the horseshoe (07), the boots (05) and the tortoise (25) are a handful of big closed shapes. A few carry more pieces: the saddle (23), the picnic basket weave (22) and the two friends with their pony (29). Only a few pages show a setting behind the subject, such as the desert ride (12) and the canyon trail (21), and nothing is boxed in by a frame, so the white paper around each picture can be left plain or filled with a sky and ground of the child’s own.

The color guide

The colored pages use warm desert tones: mustard and tan hats, denim jeans, teal, sage and plum shirts, chestnut ponies with cream manes, a red lantern, a teal mailbox and a cabin with a purple door and yellow lit window. The children in the guide have a range of skin tones and hair, from straight braids to tight curls. Each colored file shares its name and position with the outline, so 10 in one folder is the covered wagon in the other.

Printing tips

Pick the US Letter PDF for 8.5 x 11 in paper or the A4 PDF for A4 sheets, then print at Actual Size or 100% with one page per sheet and borderless enlargement off. Each picture sits inside a 7.5 x 10 inch area, which keeps it clear of the paper edges. Print one page first to check the settings before running the full book, and print single-sided.

Questions

How many pages have children on them?

Nine. A freckled girl waving with a bucket (01), a boy feeding a pony a carrot (02), a girl brushing a pony (04), a girl riding through the desert (12), a girl holding a basket of apples (17), a boy kneeling with a ranch puppy (18), a boy posting a letter beside his pony (26), a girl watering flowers at a fence (27) and two friends hugging a pony between them (29). The other 21 pages are animals, objects and places.

Is the Star Badge a sheriff's badge?

It is a plain five-point star with round tips pinned to a cowboy hat, with a knotted scarf under the hat. There are no words or town names on it.