Color by number for adults

What is on this page

Thirty six full A4 pages of intricate color by number for adults, free to download as PDFs. Every closed region on a sheet carries a small printed number, and the key along the bottom of the page names which pencil that number wants. Fill each region with its color and a geometric pattern resolves out of the outlines. The finished picture waits on the last page, so you can check the result or simply never scroll that far. Nothing needs an account and nothing carries a watermark.

What makes a color by number sheet an adult one?

Region count and color count, mostly. A children's sheet has a handful of big shapes and four or five crayons. The sheets here run from 60 to nearly 300 numbered regions with keys of up to eleven colors, so one page is an evening rather than ten minutes, and the pattern only reads as a pattern once the last region is filled.

Six pattern families, and none of them is a cartoon

These are not the animals and pumpkins from the children's color by number pages with smaller shapes drawn on top. They are computed patterns, and there are six kinds:

• Mandalas. Concentric rings cut into sectors, each ring alternating a pair of colors, which is what makes the petals appear. The rose window and the sunburst live here.
• Ripples. The same rings with a wave running through every boundary, so the finished sheet moves like water. The palette walks around each ring instead of alternating, which spirals the color outward.
• Honeycombs. Hexagon fields with the colors arranged in halos around an off center point, printed edge to edge with no white border.
• Prisms. A lattice of triangles that reads as folded paper, colored in diagonal facets.
• Harlequins. Diamond lattices in argyle and quilt arrangements, the closest thing here to a piece of fabric.
• Waves. Undulating horizontal bands cut into cells, so the color flows across the page in ribbons.

Three levels, measured rather than labeled

The level of a sheet is a count taken off that exact pattern, not a word chosen afterwards:

• Medium, 60 to 110 regions. The entry point. An hour or so, and a good place to find out which family you enjoy.
• Hard, 111 to 180 regions. Long enough that you will want to work color by color rather than region by region.
• Expert, 181 to 300 regions. The longest sheets on this site. Several sittings, and worth using pencils rather than markers so the edges stay crisp.

Every card states the exact region and color count of its own sheet, measured from that pattern rather than estimated, so you can judge the work before spending the ink.

Every region holds a number you can actually read

The quiet failure of intricate color by number pages is a region too small for its own numeral, so the number spills into the shape next door or is simply left out and you have to guess. These sheets are built the other way round. Each region is measured, the numeral sits at the widest point inside it and is scaled to the room available, and a layout with any region too tight to hold a legible number is rejected before it is drawn. That is why a 300 region sheet here still prints with numerals you can read without leaning in.

Printing them

Choose actual size or 100 percent rather than fit to page. Every sheet already carries a 15mm margin, which is also why these A4 files print on US Letter without cropping. The puzzle page prints perfectly well in black and white: the key spells each color out in words next to its swatch, so the words carry the information and the colored dots only make it quicker.

The answer pages

The answer download shows the same pattern filled in according to the key. Print it alongside if you like knowing where a sheet is going, or keep it closed and let the picture arrive on its own, which for these patterns is most of the pleasure. Each description ends with a puzzle number that identifies that exact sheet permanently, so a pattern that suited you is easy to find again.