I spent seven years working as an ESL teacher in Thailand, from 1997 to 2004, and coloring is a useful activity to use with children for a number of reasons. I wanted some coloring pages along the theme of animals, using a variety of animals that are not really mainstream in terms of what people are producing for coloring activities. So, I determined to make some of my own.
Using the program Macromedia Flash I was able to make customized coloring pages for the animals that my students were studying as part of a learning English through basic science course. You can see the finished pages which are free to use here: Royalty Free Animal Coloring Pages To Print.
If you can get hold of a copy of Macromedia Flash don’t be daunted by its many features; it is a powerful program that can do many things but we only need to use a few simple features.
Follow these simple steps and create your own coloring pages:
Step 1. Open Macromedia Flash on your computer.
Step 2. Open a new document, a blank page.
Step 3. Click on “IMPORT” and select a photograph or other image from your computer that you want to turn into a coloring page – basically we are going to trace this picture. The picture may be too big too fit on the document, use “MODIFY” and “TRANSFORM” in the menu bar to resize the image on your page.
This photo/otherimage is now on layer 1.
Step 4. Create a new layer, layer 2. Do this using “INSERT” and “LAYER” in the menu bar.
Step 5. Now you will trace your photo, working in layer 2, whilst the photo remains untouched in layer 1. To trace it use the pencil tool ensuring that you have selected “Smooth” in the “Options” section of the toolbar. You can change which layer you are working in, in the layer menu bar near the top of the page, you need to be working in layer 2 for all the tracing.
Step 6. Trace the outline and all the details you want to make a coloring design from your picture.
Step 7. When you have finished tracing all the details you need, select layer 1 and delete the original picture and you will be left with your coloring design in layer 2.
Step 8: When coloring page is complete go to “FILE” and select “PUBLISH SETTINGS”. Tick “FLASH” and “GIF” and then press “PUBLISH”. Your art will be saved as a gif file and a Flash file.
I have used this method successfully to create my own coloring pages. It will take some practice to get to grips with how to use the few aspects of Macromedia Flash that are required for this process, but it really is not that difficult and I worked it all out without any instruction.
