Coloring is one of our all-time favorite family activities. It can be done by the young and the old, and offers a shared experience and chance for conversation with our kids. We have particularly enjoyed finding Catholic coloring resources for our kids because of the opportunity it gives us to build their faith.

Rebecca Gorzynska over at DelphinaRoseArt is easily my favorite source for Catholic coloring pages. I am blessed to have her illustrating my upcoming book, and am just as geeked to be working with her on a companion coloring book. She has a remarkable sense for knowing what will appeal to children, what will spark their interest and imagination. We’ve used a lot of different coloring books over the years with G, but the pages she always, always asks for are those done by “Miss Rebecca.”

This is not at all surprising. They are beautiful coloring pages, with just the right amount of detail, something G is very sensitive too- she doesn’t like to color pictures that are too simple or “babyish.” But even William, who scribbles all over them, still finds them accessible. They really do work for multiple age ranges.

We are currently enjoying her newest set: Monsters and Martydoms II, which was a perfect activity for a cold, rainy day. My kiddos particularly enjoy the stories of the martyrs, so they were super excited to see St. Ignatius being eaten by lions and St. Denis being beheaded. Since today is the Feast of St. Catherine of Sienna, Gianna started with the coloring page of St. Catherine beset with demons. She proudly showed her Dad the finished product when he got home, happily informing him that “St. Catherine sent those demons to Hell by praying.”

As a parent, I love that Rebecca’s depictions of saints use traditional iconography– you know that St. Barbara is St. Barbara because she’s holding her tower; it’s easy to spot Catherine of Alexandria with her wheel. The coloring pages provide a great chance to tell my kids the stories of these amazing saints and martyrs, and they’re learning to identify saints when they see them elsewhere.

I also appreciate that Rebecca often draws inspiration from paintings for her coloring sheets. William was coloring St. Ignatius of Antioch today, and I was able to show him the depiction of his martyrdom from the Menologian of Basil II, an illuminated manuscript, that page he was coloring was based on.

You can head on over to her website to find all of her collections available as digital downloads- which for me, makes them an even better purchase than buying a hardcopy coloring book because we can print them as many times as we need. G is a fiend for coloring, we take coloring pages with us everywhere (Rebecca’s are a great addition for a mass bag!), and I am pretty sure she’s colored the Marian Collections at least 10 times so far. They definitely give us a bang for our buck.

Full disclosure: We did receive the newest collection from Rebecca as a gift, buuuuuut we have purchased every single other coloring page that she has drawn, so please know that it in no way has colored my opinion of just how awesome these coloring pages are (except that we got them today and not next week for vacation, which meant that they didn’t go stir crazy and I got to do some unpacking from our move).