Retro coloring pages

Free printable vintage coloring pages bring back ice cream trucks, toy shops and Victorian valentines.

These free printable vintage and retro coloring pages look back to an older time: rounded ice cream trucks, toy shop windows, early airplanes and Victorian valentines. Adults get detailed old-fashioned scenes, from a village market to a long-robed Santa. Seniors get gentler pages with bold shapes and familiar memories. There is also where the words vintage and retro come from, from Etymonline, and a faded, old-time palette to color with.

Detailed scenes from the past come first.

Vintage coloring pages for adults are old-fashioned scenes full of detail.

The Ice Cream Truck is a rounded old truck, with children in retro clothes lining up for cones. The Farmers Market fills a stall with flowers, vegetables and baskets below a church spire. The Old Fashioned Santa walks a snowy old town in a long robe, carrying a basket of toys.

The Kitten on Books naps on a stack of ornate books beside a teacup and a lace doily. The Penguin Explorer holds a lantern and a map, with an old sailing ship behind. The Hedgehog on a Bike pedals through the woods with a basket of berries. The Illuminated Initial A wraps its letter in flourishes, birds and squirrels. The March Hare in the Meadow leaps through a field of daisies. Our Santa coloring pages hold more old-time Christmas scenes. Seniors may enjoy scenes with simpler lines.

Vintage coloring pages for seniors are gentle scenes that bring back memories.

The Early Flight is a biplane with an open cockpit over a grassy field. The Victorian Valentine has two cherubs holding a lace heart framed with roses. The Toy Shop Window shows a teddy bear, a rocking horse, a doll and a toy train.

The Night at the Fair has a carousel and a Ferris wheel under strings of lights. The Hummingbird and Flowers sips from trumpet-shaped blooms. The Bath Time Boats floats toy sailboats and a rubber duck in a clawfoot tub. Pages like these are good for sharing stories while coloring, and our coloring pages for seniors have many more. The words vintage and retro have their own stories too.

What do vintage and retro mean?

Vintage started with wine. Etymonline, the Online Etymology Dictionary, says it first meant a grape harvest in the early 1400s. The sense of "being of an earlier time" came by 1883, and it was used of cars from 1928.

Retro is much younger. Etymonline dates it in English to 1974, from the French rétro, short for rétrograde, a word for moving backward. So a vintage page shows something from an earlier time, and a retro page brings an old style back. The same old-time feeling shapes how these pages are best colored.

How do you color vintage coloring pages so they look old-fashioned?

Choose soft, faded colors instead of bright ones: dusty rose, sage green, mustard, cream and faded teal. If a pencil looks too bright, go over it lightly with a warm gray or tan to calm it down.

Give the background a pale cream or light tan wash, like the paper of an old postcard. Use gold or ochre for trims, frames and lettering on pages like the valentine and the initial. Keep the darkest shade for a brown, not black, so the page stays soft.

From an old ice cream truck to a Victorian valentine, these free printable vintage coloring pages bring back scenes from an earlier time. Pick a memory, choose a faded palette, and color it like an old postcard.