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April 30, 2013

Rain Painting

Yesterday I introduced our exciting week long Play inspired by Nature series.  I am having so much fun collaborating with Crystal from Growing a Jeweled Rose.  Yesterday we both played in the MUD and had a blast.  If you missed it you can find our mud posts here and here. Today we are both “singing in the rain, just singing in the rain” 🙂  OK, I’m not sure I heard any singing, but we did have lots of fun Rain Painting.

Play Inspired by Nature

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My kids love painting, so we decided to take it outdoors and paint with Mother Nature.  Day 2 of Play Inspired by Nature series ~ Rain Painting.  We have done this before, and it is always a hit.  We actually experimented with 5 different painting mediums to see which we like the best.

5 Fun Ways to Paint in the Rain

Rain painting with Broken water color cakes ~ We used a cheap watercolor set, I think found at the dollar store.

5 Fun Ways to Paint in the Rain

The kids popped the cakes out the the container and then broke them into little pieces with a hammer.  This was my sons favorite part:)  They placed our in a baggie to try and contain all the broken pieces.

5 Fun Ways to Paint in the Rain

The kids sprinkled the watercolor bits onto a water color paper and set it out in the rain.

5 Fun Ways to Paint in the Rain

After a while, I was surprised that the watercolors did not run and bleed more.  So we placed a piece of plastic wrap over the entire paper and proceeded to squish the colorful bits.  They had softened in the rain, and the kids really enjoyed watching the colors squish and spread under the plastic.  We may try it again with a different brand of watercolors to see if we can get better results.

Rain Painting with Powdered Tempera Paint ~ Powdered Tempera Paint is relatively inexpensive, and is really easy to use.

5 Fun Ways to Paint in the Rain

Instead of mixing it with water to make paint, we sprinkled it onto our paper dry.  As the rain drops hit the powder, it turned into paint.
5 Fun Ways to Paint in the Rain

It gave a very textural look to the painting.  I think it would look great in a rainbow of colors!  Just make sure to sprinkle the paint lightly.  The larger clumps did not work as well as the thin sprinkled areas.

Rain Painting with Washable Markers ~ This is one of the easiest ways to paint in the rain.  All you need is a few markers, a piece of heavy paper and some imagination.  The rain will blur and soften your image as the color bleed and run together.

5 Fun Ways to Paint in the RainRain painting with Watercolor Crayons ~ I have posted about my love for watercolor crayons before.  Since they also bleed when wet, we thought it would be fun to see what they did in the rain.

5 Fun Ways to Paint in the Rain

Simple sharpen your watercolor crayons with a pencil sharpener and sprinkle the shavings onto your paper and let the rain do the rest.

5 Fun Ways to Paint in the Rain

I love how the colors pooled together.  Notice the larger “spots”, they were created with larger chucks of watercolor crayons.

Rain Painting with Food Coloring ~ This is how we have painted in the rain before.  We always have food coloring on hand so it is our go to method.

5 Fun Ways to Paint in the Rain

We have found it works best if the paper is wet when you apply the food coloring.  So we took our paper and food coloring outside.  Once the rain soaked the paper, the kids dropped food coloring onto it.    5 Fun Ways to Paint in the Rain

They love picking up the tray and watching the colors swirl and mix.

While the kids were waiting for the rain to do its magic, they hit the streets with chalk.  Drawing with chalk on a wet sidewalk is one of our favorite rainy day activities.   5 Fun Ways to Paint in the Rain

Chalk takes on a whole new texture when wet and the colors are twice as vibrant.5 Fun Ways to Paint in the Rain

If you are still looking for more ways to play in the rain and stomp in puddles, check out our  Rainy Days, Clouds and Puddles posts.  There are lots of outdoor rainy day play ideas, along with a fun science experiment.

Rainy Days, Clouds and Puddles

What is your favorite way to Play in the Rain?

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Make sure to stop by Growing A Jeweled Rose and check out Crystals Rainy Day Activities ~ Puddle Play.  Her girls always have a great time stomping and getting creative with puddles!

 rainy day puddle play

Also check out Monster Puddle Stomping and Halloween Puddle Jumping Fun

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You might also enjoy the learning through movement series being shared by members of:

The PLAY Group

Gross Motor Addition Game

Number Hunt

Add It Up

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Related posts:

  1. Wet Chalk Drawings
  2. Painting on Wet Glue
  3. Pour Painting with Watercolors
  4. Glowing Ice Painting
Posted in Experiments, Kid Art, Spring, Summer and tagged Kid Art, Nature Play, Painting, Spring.

Welcome to Housing A Forest!
I would love for you to grab a cup of coffee and stay a while. You can read more about us or catch up on our favorite experiments, projects + art activities.

Related posts:

  1. Wet Chalk Drawings
  2. Painting on Wet Glue
  3. Pour Painting with Watercolors
  4. Glowing Ice Painting
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22 thoughts on “Rain Painting”

  1. Anita Goodson on May 1, 2013 at 10:59 am said:

    Love ideas

    Reply ↓
  2. Ashley on May 1, 2013 at 7:38 pm said:

    Looks like fun! We will have to try it this spring; seems like it could be a wet one!

    Reply ↓
    • Tammy on May 1, 2013 at 11:40 pm said:

      I can’t wait to see what you come up with! I always love your posts.

      Reply ↓
  3. Lindsey - Seedlings Nursery School on May 1, 2013 at 9:08 pm said:

    These are lovely! Too bad I live in the desert! 🙁

    Reply ↓
    • Tammy on May 1, 2013 at 11:39 pm said:

      You could try a it under a sprinkler or with a water gun:) Might not be rain, but could be just a fun.

      Reply ↓
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  5. maria f. on May 2, 2013 at 4:38 am said:

    Hey Tammy – just to let you know I gave you a shout out on my blog today for this cool technique which I can’t wait to try… I did something similar with tea bags recently.

    http://rieslingmama.blogspot.de/2013/05/just-for-fun-of-it.html

    Reply ↓
    • Tammy on May 2, 2013 at 8:41 am said:

      Thanks for the shout out:) I never thought of using it for a card before, but you are right it would look fantastic. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

      Reply ↓
  6. huana on May 2, 2013 at 1:43 pm said:

    I love the ideas! And it will be fun to reuse it as gift wraps or postcards or picture frames,oh ideas just keep coming!

    Reply ↓
    • Tammy on May 2, 2013 at 2:03 pm said:

      I love the idea of using the same process on wrapping. I would love to see how it turns out!

      Reply ↓
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  10. JDaniel4's Mom on May 5, 2013 at 3:17 pm said:

    We have had so much rain here lately. I bet JDaniel would love to paint in the rain.

    Reply ↓
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  15. Chaney on June 18, 2013 at 6:58 pm said:

    Where did you get those trays?

    Reply ↓
    • Tammy on June 18, 2013 at 7:25 pm said:

      I got them a number of years ago at IKEA. They have been through lots of fun projects:)

      Reply ↓
  16. barb on August 8, 2013 at 7:13 am said:

    For your “sprinkle” ideas, try going to dollar store and getting salt shakers. Put paint in shaker and sprinkle. Won’t get clumps that way!

    Reply ↓
  17. Claire on June 25, 2014 at 5:37 pm said:

    What a great idea for keeping little ones entertained on a rainy day! Thanks so much for the inspiration to get outside even in the rain! We’ll be sharing this with our facebook followers! 🙂

    Reply ↓

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