Rain Painting

Have you ever tried Rain Painting? Who knew that the rain could paint such a beautiful picture. It's incredibly easy, but also incredibly entertaining. Every time it begins to rain, Charlotte asks if we can make a Rain Painting picture. I originally spotted the idea on Pinterest and followed this tutorial. We have been doing this project for over a year now so I thought we would share some of our tips in case you want to give it a try the next time the sky starts to cloud up!

Supplies:
Watercolor Paper
food color (we've used both regular and gel)
baking sheet
paper towels

I highly recommend using watercolor paper for this project. It will help the colors be more vibrant, the colors won't run off the paper as quickly and it's thicker than normal paper so your lovely project won't warp and wrinkle once it is dry! You definitely don't have to draw an image on your paper. Trust me the rain paints a great masterpiece. Plus you never can tell how long the rain will actually stick around. We just had several of these ice cream drawings already made up from Charlotte's recent birthday party so we decided to give them a try. I just used a sharpie to draw this quick image.

I always place our paper on a baking sheet. They are solid, sturdy, easy for little hands to transport and even easier to clean once you are all through.  Let your child squeeze a few random dots of food coloring around the page. You can use as many colors as you want, but don't cover the entire page with food coloring. You want to leave enough room for the rain to splatter the food coloring across the paper.

You are ready to set your picture out in the rain now. This project works best if you have a slow steady rain. The harder the rain comes down, the quicker the food coloring will spread. For these pictures, we had a very slow, steady, light rain. However, if you follow me on Instagram, I posted a video of this project in progress and the rain was too heavy. It suprised us by coming down hard right when we placed our picture out in the rain. The result was still pretty, but the colors blended together way too quickly and they puddled up on the paper too much. If you have a slow rain, then the project takes longer to complete and you have plenty of time to watch as the rain slowly paints the picture for you.

As the rain slowly hits the drops of food coloring, it will splatter the colors across your paper. It's quite neat and exciting to watch! Don't be alarmed if the food coloring splatters onto your concrete. Even though we set the paper on the baking sheet, the rain still splatters the food coloring all around our back porch or driveway. No worries! It always washes off and has never, ever left a remaining stain! Also keep an eye on the radius of the splatters. Charlotte always comes away with rainbow splattered legs each and every time we complete this project. Even though we have rain painted numerous times, she is still mesmerized watching the rain splatter the food coloring. This means she is always standing in the rain, inches away from her picture as her legs slowly get colorful spots all over them. She loves it and thankfully it washes off easily!

Keep a close eye on your picture. Once the rain starts to make large, dark puddles like the ones above, it's time to bring your picture in out of the rain. This guarantees that the paper won't be over saturated and that your picture will be more colorful instead of monotone.

You might want to wear a glove or use a good wad of paper towels for this next step so you won't have a rainbow stained hand for the remainder of the day! Yes, I speak from experience. Charlotte thinks its hilarious! I take some paper towels and very gently dab those dark puddles that we mentioned above. This again will keep your picture colorful and help it dry much quicker! There you have it. A one of a kind rain painting. An easy, fun project to do on a drizzly day that still lets the kids play outside for a bit! If you give it a try, snap a picture! I would love to see what the rain decides to paint for you!!!