St. Patrick’s Day Art: Our First Rainbows

Lilah’s framed rainbow

Luke’s framed rainbow

I modeled the painting of a very basic rainbow since we hadn’t done it before, but aside from the modeling, L&L (ages 4 and 2.5) were free to paint their rainbows as they wanted.  

To make the project a little educational as well as artsy, we used only the 3 primary colors of paint and mixed the secondary colors ourselves.  We painted in rainbow order – ROY G BIV – except that instead of indigo and violet, we just did a single purple color.

Here are the materials we used for this project:

• red washable tempera paint
• yellow washable tempera paint
• blue washable tempera paint
• large pieces of paper (one per person)
• 3 cotton balls per person
• 3 plastic lids for holding/mixing paint (saved from food containers)

Here’s what we did:

1. Gave everyone a big sheet of paper.  I took one, too, so I could model the making of a rainbow.

2. We started with red.  I squirted some onto a recycled plastic lid, we dipped our cotton balls into the paint, and I showed them how to dab red across the page in a bit of an arc.  I helped Lilah (2.5yo) by guiding her hand a bit to get her rainbow started.  Luke did his completely on his own. 

3. After red, I asked L&L what color I needed to mix with red to make orange.  We added yellow onto the plastic lid, along with a little more red paint and I mixed it with my cotton ball.  We used our same cotton balls to paint an arc of orange under the red.  Then I threw the plastic lid in the sink and trashed our cotton balls.

 

4. On a clean plastic lid, I squirted yellow paint.  Using new cotton balls, we dabbed a line of yellow under the orange.

5.  After yellow, I asked L&L what color I needed to mix with yellow to make green.  We added blue onto the plastic lid, along with a little more yellow paint, and I mixed it with my cotton ball.  We used our same cotton balls to paint an arc of green under the yellow.  Then I threw the plastic lid in the sink and trashed our cotton balls.

6. On a clean plastic lid, I squirted blue paint.  Using new cotton balls, we dabbed a line of blue under the green.

7.  After blue, I asked L&L what color I needed to mix with blue to make purple.  We added red onto the plastic lid, along with a little more blue paint, and I mixed it with my cotton ball.  We used our same cotton balls to paint an arc of purple under the blue.  Then I threw the plastic lid in the sink and trashed our cotton balls.

8.  We sat back and admired our 3 unique, beautiful rainbows!

Mommy’s model is on top Lilah’s rainbow is in the middle Luke’s rainbow is on the bottom

     

Hope these bring a little brightness to your day like they did to mine.