Spring Coloring Pages: A happy coloring page of a farmer who harvests spring fresh lettuce-a bite of the leaves, well-arranged field rows, and the sunny farm spirit.
In this scene we see a genial farmer on his knees in between neat rows of spring lettuce, his hand easing up one head of ruffled leaves to a crate. You will notice these stacked textures everywhere: wavy edges of leaves and central stem of lettuce, loose clumps of soil and small rocks, woven box or wood slats, and folds of clothes on the farmer inside the shirt, hat and solid boots. On the background, low hills, a plain barn and some clouds (or birds) help to deepen, but they do not fill the page. It is harmonious between hunks of wide, calm open space (skies, fields), and pleasant detail (leaf curls, glove seams, crate corners), which makes it enjoyable to use both as fast color, and as slow, meditative shading.

How to Color:
Create a back-to-front scene: use a wash of pale sky blue that grades into the horizon, then paint the background background hills the cooler lighter green so that the foreground stands out. In the case of lettuce, use three greens--yellow-green for highlights, the main color mid-green, and the shadow olive--shading darkest where the leaves overlap at the center; give short flicks along the edges, to give the idea of ruffles, and a slightly darker line in the middle of each of the central veins. Give the soil a warm tan grounding, glazing gently in soft browns, a hint of cool gray in furrows; darken the trench shadows in the very center of where touch of leaf meets ground. To do this, paint the crate a warm ochre and then use some thinned brown paint lines in the crate to indicate wood grain and a highlight along the edge to indicate some sunlit edge. Select clothing colors, which contrast the greens (denim blue pants, plaid red/cream shirt, straw-gold hat); create darker folds in crease areas, and keep very small highlights on knees, elbows, and the hat brim. Cast shadows to the bottom of the crate, knees and heads of the lettuces so as to make them look seated on a ground and put very small dots of pebble highlights to give them texture. Markers are good on the flat (sky, fields); colored pencils on the leaf texture and soil; a white gel pen on crisp tips on the lettuce edges and tiny reflective specks on the crate.