Step by step coloring: Fish

Fancy a free coloring page?  Want a quick coloring tutorial?  Then this is the blog for you!  This month we have a step by step coloring guide complete with a free fish themed coloring page.  Color along or choose your own style – the choice is yours.

Free Fish Coloring Page

Follow the steps in thecoloringbook.club color along.  Download the free fish coloring page, dig out your coloring pens and settle in for a five minute fish coloring tutorial!

Download the free fish coloring page

Choose your colors

I decided to use three base colors in a small selection of shades, blue, yellow and orange.  These colors work well together and the limited color palette should make for a pleasing design.  Check out our article on the color wheel to get tips on which colors work well together.

Test your colors on your coloring page (or a separate piece of paper) to make sure you are happy with them.

Orange

I lay the base color on the fish.  As I do this I think about where my next color will go.  Generally I try to have colors alternate.

Yellow

With three main sections of the fish I am settled on having each section a different color.  My lightest color, yellow, will look most effective when used in smaller areas, contrasting against a bolder color.  

Blue

Look how the pale yellow stands out more when combined with the dark blue I add to the bottom half of the fish.  Because I try and avoid the same color touching each other I have the top fin alternate blue and yellow, which works nicely against the orange half of the fish.  Having a small amount of blue on the top half of the fish also helps balance out the larger area of blue used for the belly.

Background

If the background was to use a color that I already added to the body of the fish then the design would look very flat and be in danger of having the fish lost amongst the background.  When adding a background it is a good choice to use a lighter shade of color, this will help the main focus of your design stand out.

Water

For the water lines I choose a brighter shade of the background color.  This brighter color blue, alternating with the darker teal, gives a simple translucent water like feel to the design.  Again, I alternate the colors making sure that no two colors of the same value touch each other.

Reeds

Sticking with my base colors I choose a lighter shade of the orange used on the fish body and alternate this with my original orange to color the reeds.  This balances the use of orange in the picture and helps offset the blue.

Bubbles

For the finishing touches I color the bubbles.  The lighter shade of blue is an obvious choice for those areas which lie on the teal background.  

Finished Fish

And here is the final fish.  Simple block coloring and nicely balanced colors give a pleasing finish to this coloring page.  We could take it further by adding some white gel pen highlights to the bubble and fish body, or by adding some black fine liner scale patterns, but that can wait for another day!   

Your turn

Download the free fish coloring page and share with us on Facebook.  Will you choose the same colors or mix things up?   Let us know in the comments below.