If you have ever scrolled through colouring page websites, you know the feeling: the same princess, the same rainbow, the same farm animals your child lost interest in six months ago. And the personalised craft kits that promise something better cost a small fortune for what amounts to a few printed sheets. The good news is that AI image tools can generate custom colouring pages and activity sheets in under a minute, tailored to whatever your child is obsessed with this week — whether that is axolotls, space rockets, or a very specific dinosaur wearing a hat.
You do not need any design skills. If you can type a sentence, you can create something entirely new with AI — and this is one of the most satisfying places to start.
Why AI-Generated Colouring Pages Work
Personalisation is the reason these pages hold a child's attention longer than anything you can download from a generic website. When a colouring page features your child's favourite animal doing their favourite activity, it stops being just another sheet of paper. It becomes something they actually want to finish.
There are three practical advantages worth knowing about. First, AI-generated pages are instant — no browsing through hundreds of results to find something close enough. Second, most image generators are free to use or included in tools you may already have. And third, you can adjust the complexity to match your child's age and ability, from bold simple outlines for toddlers to intricate scenes for older children.
It is frustrating when you buy a colouring book and your child flips through it once, declares "boring," and moves on. AI lets you bypass that entirely.
How to Create Custom Colouring Pages
The process is simpler than most people expect. We are going to walk through it step by step, and by the end you will have a page ready to print.
Choose Your Tool
Several AI image generators work well for this. Here are the most accessible options:
- ChatGPT — the easiest starting point if you already have an account. Image generation is built in, and the free tier includes it.
- Microsoft Copilot — free and available through Bing. Includes built-in image generation.
- Canva Magic Media — good if you prefer working within a familiar design tool. Free tier available.
Any of these will work. If you are brand new to AI tools, our beginner learning paths walk you through setting up and getting comfortable.
Write Your Prompt
This is the part that matters most, and it is also the part where most people's first attempt goes sideways. When we first tried this, the results came back with heavy shading, grey backgrounds, and details too small for a child to colour. Three words fixed almost everything: "simple outlines" and "no shading."
Here is a prompt structure that works reliably:
Basic template: "Create a black and white colouring page of [subject], simple outlines suitable for a [age]-year-old, no shading, no grey tones, white background"
Specific examples you can copy and adapt:
- "Create a black and white colouring page of a dinosaur riding a bicycle through a park, simple outlines suitable for a 5-year-old, no shading, no grey tones, white background"
- "Create a black and white colouring page of a cat astronaut floating in space with stars and planets, simple bold outlines suitable for a 4-year-old, no shading, white background"
- "Create a black and white colouring page of an underwater scene with an octopus having a tea party with fish, detailed outlines suitable for an 8-year-old, no shading, white background"
Notice the pattern: subject, activity or scene, outline style matched to age, and explicit instructions about shading and background. If you want to sharpen your prompting skills more broadly, the same principles apply everywhere — specificity is what separates a useful result from a disappointing one.
Print and Go
Save the image, open it on your computer, and print it. If the lines appear too faint, most image viewers let you increase contrast before printing. A4 works for most pages, but scaling to A3 gives younger children more room to work.
🧠 Quick Challenge: You want to create a colouring page of a cat in space for your 5-year-old. Which prompt will produce a better result?
- A) "Draw a cat in space, colouring page style"
- B) "Create a black and white colouring page of a cat wearing a space helmet floating among stars, simple bold outlines suitable for a 5-year-old, no shading, no grey tones, white background"
Answer: B) Prompt B includes every element covered above — a specific subject (cat in a space helmet), a scene (floating among stars), age-appropriate complexity (simple bold outlines for a 5-year-old), and explicit instructions about shading and background. Prompt A would likely return a detailed, shaded illustration that is difficult for a young child to colour.
Beyond Colouring Pages
Once you have the hang of generating colouring pages, it is a short step to creating other activities. This is where things get genuinely creative.
Custom Word Searches
Ask ChatGPT to generate a word search using vocabulary your child is learning. A prompt like "Create a 10x10 word search grid for a 7-year-old using these words: planet, orbit, rocket, asteroid, gravity, telescope, astronaut, comet, satellite, nebula" produces a ready-to-print puzzle in seconds.
Personalised Story Illustrations
If your child loves a story you have been telling them at bedtime, you can generate colouring page illustrations for it. "Create a black and white colouring page of a girl called Amira and her pet dragon exploring a magical forest, simple outlines, no shading, white background." Suddenly your bedtime story has its own illustrated activity book.
Dot-to-Dot Pages
Ask the AI to "create a dot-to-dot activity page in the shape of a butterfly with numbers 1 to 30, suitable for a 6-year-old, black dots on a white background." These take a bit more prompting to get right — you may need to regenerate a couple of times — but the results are worth it.
Activity Sheets With Your Child's Name
"Create a colouring page with the name OLIVER written in large bubble letters decorated with stars and rockets, suitable for a 5-year-old to colour in, black outlines on white background." Personalised name pages make excellent birthday party activities or rainy afternoon projects.
