30 Landscape Coloring Pages For Adults – Printable Stress Relief

Why I Color Mountain Ranges During Budget Meetings (And Other Landscape Confessions)

It started with a beach scene I printed at work when nobody was looking. Now I'm three years deep into landscape coloring pages for adults, and my desk drawer looks like a paper version of the Travel Channel. Mountains for Monday meetings, forests for Friday afternoons, and there's this one sunset scene I've colored four times because apparently I have a thing about getting clouds "right." Whatever that means.

Here's what nobody tells you about landscape coloring: it's basically a vacation you take with colored pencils while your actual vacation days sit there unused because, you know, adulting. I discovered this completely by accident during a particularly soul-crushing quarterly review season. Someone had left a coloring book in the break room (still don't know who – thank you, mystery person), and there was this mountain scene that just... called to me? Sounds ridiculous. Was perfect.

Three hours later, I'd missed two "optional" meetings and created the world's most aggressively purple mountain range. No regrets.

The Landscape Escape Thing Nobody Talks About

Look, I live in suburban Illinois. The most nature I see daily is the parking lot tree that's somehow still alive despite everything. But hand me a forest scene at 11pm with Netflix running in the background, and suddenly I'm creating my own personal Yellowstone. With way more pink. Because my forest, my rules.

Landscapes do something different than mandalas or patterns or even those cute animal pages everyone loves. They're not about repetition or meditation or whatever – they're about creating a place you want to be. Even if that place has a purple sky because you grabbed the wrong pencil and just went with it. Especially then, actually.

The thing about landscape pages is they forgive everything. Sunset wrong color? It's "artistic." Trees look weird? They're "whimsical." Can't figure out how shadows work? It's "stylized." Try doing that with a portrait page. Actually don't – learned that the hard way.

My coworker caught me coloring a beach scene during a Zoom call last week. Camera off, obviously. She goes, "Is that your happy place?" And I'm like, "Karen, this beach has purple sand and an orange ocean. It's nobody's happy place. But yeah, kind of." She started coloring cityscapes the next day. We don't talk about it, but sometimes I see her pencil case in meetings now.

Real Talk About Skies, Water, and Those Damn Trees

Skies are where I lose my mind every single time. You'd think they'd be easy – big open space, pick a blue, go to town. NOPE. Skies are where all your coloring insecurities come out to play. Do I gradient? Do I add clouds? Why does my sunset look like cotton candy exploded? The sunset page from January is still sitting there, half-done, mocking me from my desk. The sky defeated me. I've made peace with it.

Water though? Water I've figured out. Kind of. The secret is to not think about actual water physics. Just make swooshy motions with whatever blue-ish color speaks to you in that moment. I've colored lakes pink, rivers purple, and one memorable ocean that ended up looking like molten copper because I was experimenting with my new metallic pencils at 1am. That one's actually my favorite.

Trees are their own special hell. I've accepted that my trees will never look like actual trees. They look like what trees would look like if trees were designed by someone who's only seen trees through Instagram filters while drinking wine. Lots of wine. There's this one forest scene where I tried to do "realistic" bark texture for about five minutes before giving up and just making everything purple-brown. It looks like a forest from another planet. I framed it.

The mountain scenes though? Mountains are my jam. Maybe because mountains are already basically triangles with texture, and even I can handle triangles. Plus, you can make mountains any color and people just assume it's "sunset lighting" or "artistic interpretation." I have a mountain range that's entirely pink and orange. My friend saw it and goes, "Oh, like the Rockies at sunset?" Sure, Jennifer. That's exactly what I was going for. Not just that I ran out of gray.

Actually, speaking of supplies – and this is probably weird – but I'm obsessed with this one specific brown pencil from a set I bought at Walgreens two years ago. It's not even a fancy pencil. It's literally from a $6 pack. But it makes the perfect tree trunk color when you press really hard then go over it with dark green. The pencil is now basically a nub. I've tried to find the exact same set again. Can't. Walgreens betrayed me. I'm rationing what's left of that brown like it's the apocalypse.

Oh, and paths. Paths through forests or meadows or whatever. I always make them too wide at first. Like, every time. You'd think I'd learn. But no, there I am making a path through a forest that could accommodate a four-lane highway. My landscapes are apparently very accessible. Good for them.

The seasonal landscape pages are a whole mood. Fall landscapes in February when you're sick of winter. Beach scenes in November because why not. Spring meadows during tax season as a form of protest against everything. I colored a winter scene in July once just because the AC was broken and it felt like manifesting or something. Didn't work, still sweated through the whole thing, but the snow looked really good angry-colored.

There's this one landscape – a cottage by a lake with mountains in the background – that I've started three times. Never finished it. It's too perfect? Like, I know I'm going to mess it up so I just keep starting new copies. I have a folder labeled "Cottage Attempts." We all have that one page, right? Right?

Questions I Actually Get Asked

The truth about landscape coloring pages? They're permission to create worlds where the rules don't matter. Where trees can be purple, skies can be green, and mountains can be whatever color helps you forget about that presentation tomorrow. It's not about making it look real – it's about making it feel like somewhere you'd rather be than your actual Tuesday.

My laptop bag currently contains three half-finished landscapes, a set of pencils that's missing half the greens (where do they GO?), and that cottage scene I'll probably never finish. Last week I colored a mountain range during my daughter's soccer practice. Another parent asked if I was "into art." I said yes because explaining that I just really needed to color some rocks right then seemed complicated.

Sometimes I think about taking an actual art class to learn "proper" landscape techniques. Then I remember that my purple mountain range got me through tax season, my orange ocean helped during a family crisis, and my forests with impossible trees have been better than any therapy session. So maybe I'll just keep doing it wrong.

Anyway, if you need me, I'll be trying to figure out how to color realistic clouds for the 47th time. This time will definitely be different. (It won't.)