Candle with a Sugar Skull Coloring Page

Candle with a Sugar Skull Coloring Page stands one tall candle at the top of the page with wax running down its sides and a lit flame above, and rests a small decorated skull at its foot with a flower tucked at the side. Free to print, for ages 2 to 8.

How this coloring page was created

The concept we sent was "One bold simple candle with a flame and a small flower at its base, with a little sugar skull beside it" into Colorin AI, in the minimalist style. The candle is the subject here and the skull is the company, which is why one is drawn tall and the other small.

The wax came back as four separate drips down the front of the candle, which is more interesting to colour than a plain cylinder and no harder.

This candle coloring page features

Candles are lit on the ofrenda for each person being remembered, one flame each, and they stay burning through the night. That is why a single candle is enough to say what the page is about.

The candle body is a tall rectangle with a rounded top, four wax drips down the front and a short wick. The flame above is a simple teardrop with a second smaller teardrop inside it.

At the base sits a small sugar skull with flower eyes, a heart nose, a patterned brow and a five petal flower tucked behind one side.

The two objects touch but do not overlap, which keeps every outline closed and the page easy at this age.

The whole drawing runs vertically down the middle of the sheet with nothing at either side, which is deliberate: the shape of a candle is a tall shape.

Coloring Ideas and Techniques

Two tones in the flame, pale inside and orange at the edge, is the one technique worth teaching on this page. It takes ten seconds and it is the difference between a flame and a leaf.

Leave the wax drips white and colour the candle around them. Filled in, they disappear; left white, they read as melted wax immediately.

The candle body can take any colour. Real ofrenda candles are usually white or cream, but nothing is lost by making this one purple.

Colour the little skull brightly. It is small, so a strong colour there balances the tall pale candle above it.

The flower at the skull's side is the last thing to do and the natural place for the one colour that appears nowhere else on the page.

Print two and stand them side by side. Two candles is what most family altars carry, and the pair reads better on a wall than one alone.

There is a second candle page in this collection, the sugar skull standing between two of them, and it is considerably busier. This one is the version for a child who wants the same subject without the crowd around it.

One thing worth saying to a child before they start: the candle is not decoration. On a real altar each flame stands for one person, and families light them at dusk and leave them burning. A page with one candle is a page about one person.