Elephant Coloring Pages

Gentle giants with big ears and clever trunks. These elephant pages are mostly cute cartoon babies with simple shapes for toddlers, plus sunny savanna scenes that older kids will enjoy.

About Elephants

Elephants are the largest land animals in the world, and much of their body is built to help them eat, drink, and stay cool. Their long trunk is both a nose and a hand, used to sniff the air, pick up leaves, and spray water. Their gray skin looks tough, but it is actually wrinkled and sensitive, and it can even get sunburned on hot, bright days in the wild. That is one reason elephants love rolling in mud, which coats and protects their skin. A dust bath works in much the same helpful way.

An elephant’s big ears help it cool down, and they can also tell you where it comes from, because African elephants have much larger ears than Asian elephants. Both kinds may grow tusks, which are really long teeth made of ivory. Elephants live in close family herds led by the oldest female, called a matriarch, who remembers good places to find food and water. Baby elephants, called calves, stay right beside their mothers and learn by watching the herd. They drink milk at first and slowly learn to use their trunks well.

All 6 Elephant Coloring Pages

Scroll down to browse every page below, or use the Print button under any image to print just that page.

A happy baby elephant with big ears sitting under radiating sunbeams and clouds. Medium — great for kids.

Soft gray makes a friendly base for the baby elephant, with a slightly darker gray inside the big ears and a touch of pale pink at the edges. Color the radiating sunbeams in warm yellow and soft orange, alternating light and bright rays, and leave the clouds mostly white with a little light blue underneath for gentle shade.

Try coloring the sunbeams from the center outward, keeping your crayon strokes moving in the same direction as each ray so they look like light spreading out. Press lightly on the elephant and a little firmer on the rays, then add a tiny white highlight in each eye to make the happy face feel bright and awake.

A sweet baby elephant with a curled trunk standing in tall grass. Medium — great for kids.

For the tall grass, layer two or three greens, starting with yellow-green at the tips and deeper green down low where the blades overlap. Keep the baby elephant a calm light gray so it stands out from the grass, then add soft pink inside the ears and a slightly darker gray along the curled trunk for shape.

Leave a few thin grass blades uncolored or color them pale yellow so the whole patch does not turn into one flat block. Short, upward strokes with crayons or pencils copy the way grass grows, and coloring the elephant first, then working the grass carefully around its feet, keeps the outline clean and easy to follow.

An elephant with small tusks and wide ears framed by bold sunburst rays. Medium — great for kids.

Bold sunburst rays look best in strong, cheerful colors like sunny yellow, tangerine, and a softer peach between them. Use a medium gray for the elephant and a deeper gray in the creases of the wide ears, then keep the small tusks creamy white with just a hint of pale yellow so they stay bright against the gray skin.

If you color one ray at a time and turn the page as you go, it is easier to stay inside the bold lines and keep each color even. Try outlining the tusks very lightly in gray before you finish, because that small shadow helps the smooth white tusks stand out from the elephant behind them.

A smiling elephant curling its trunk, with a big sun rising behind it. Medium — great for kids.

Golden yellow is a happy choice for the big sun, with soft orange around its lower edge to suggest early morning light. Color the smiling elephant in light gray with rosy pink inside the ears, and add a slightly darker gray under the curled trunk so its round shape is easy for young eyes to see.

Curved lines on the curled trunk are your guide for shading, so follow them with short pencil strokes instead of coloring straight across. A simple finishing touch is to leave a small white circle in the sun uncolored as a glow spot, then color gently around it so the sun feels warm without looking flat.

A baby elephant under a leafy tree, lifting a leaf with its trunk. Medium — great for kids.

Under the leafy tree, use two greens for the leaves, a fresh light green on top and a deeper green underneath to show shade. Keep the baby elephant soft gray with pink inside the ears, color the single leaf it is lifting a brighter green than the tree, and use warm brown for the tree trunk.

A fun finishing touch is to make the lifted leaf the brightest thing on the page, so everyone's eye goes straight to what the trunk is holding. Color the tree leaves a little darker around the elephant's head, and that gentle shadow makes the baby stand out while still looking cozy and sheltered underneath.

A baby elephant with big gentle eyes standing in grassy savanna. Medium — great for kids.

Gentle eyes are the heart of this page, so keep the elephant's gray soft and even to let them shine. Use warm, dry savanna colors for the grass, like straw yellow, light tan, and a little soft green mixed in, then add pale pink inside the ears and a touch of darker gray around the feet.

You can draw in a few tiny flowers low in the grass if you want a sweet extra detail, keeping them small so the face stays the star. For the big eyes themselves, color them dark, leave one tiny white dot uncolored in each, and that little sparkle makes the elephant look gentle and alive.

Coloring Tips for Elephants

• Real elephants are gray, but purple, blue, or pink elephants are more fun — there's no wrong answer here.
• Shade the ears a slightly darker tone than the body to give the elephant dimension.
• Color the sunburst backgrounds warm yellow and orange to make the gray elephant pop.
• Leave the toenails white or color them light tan — it's a small detail that looks great.
• Chunky crayons suit these big simple shapes; the wrinkle lines are easy enough for older toddlers.

FAQ

Can I use these in my classroom?
Yes — free for personal and classroom use.

What size paper should I print on?
US Letter (8.5x11) works best; A4 is fine with fit-to-page enabled. Each coloring page below has its own Download and Print buttons.

Why do elephants sometimes look brown or orange instead of gray?
Elephants start out gray, but mud and dust change how they look. After a mud bath or a roll in dusty soil, their skin takes on the color of the ground, so they may appear brown, red, or orange. When you color, a light gray base with a soft brown wash gives that natural, dusty look.

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