Butterfly rain art is a wonderful process art activity perfect for rainy days, alternatively, you can use a spray bottle of water to get the same reaction. We thought that there was something magical watching the rain fall and change and mix our butterfly’s colours.
Butterfly Rain Art
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Materials
- Colour diffusing paper – Coffee filter paper or kitchen roll is perfect
- Washable markers or felt tips
- rain or spray bottle or pipettes filled with water
How to make butterfly rain art
There are a few ways to make this butterfly rain art depending on the age of children involved. I did it with a four year old and a nine year old and it was lovely to see the different ways they tackled the project and what they got out of it.
This project was included in a fab kit we received from Trunkaroo and we adapted it so include the weather as all we seem to have had lately is rain!
Cut out your shape on the paper. For younger children you can draw it out and encourage them to cut it, but it can be challenging as it is more floppy than standard paper.
Then colour in your butterflies. You can use lots of colours and make patterns too. Make sure you have something underneath your butterfly to protect your table.
As we had lots of and lots of rain, we took some of our butterflies outside and left them on our pavement in the rain.
You could also do the same with a water spray, which I did with the four year old too.
The science of colour
You can talk about the different colours of the rainbow as they colour in (red, orange. yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet) or the primary colours for younger children (red, blue and yellow).
Discuss what happens when you mix the colours together, such as red and yellow. What do they think will happen to the colours they have next to each other when the rain hits them?
For older children, you can talk about chromatography (separating mixtures) and this was something that really interested Mini. Chromatography means “colour writing” (from the Greek words chroma and graphe). We talked about what we thought would happen when the rain hit the black-coloured section and it was fascinating to see that is split in top colours. If you want to look at this more then filter paper is great for this and you can use one colour of pen and then add the water to see what happens.
This was such a fun process art activity and great to do with a group of children all different ages. I really loved listening to the older ones explaining diffusion and colour mixing to the younger ones.
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Oh, I`ll definitely try this with my kids 🙂 It look so much fun 🙂 Thank you for the idea …
What a beautiful idea and a great way to show children how different colours merge to create new colours. Also, the perfect way to make rain fun and embrace those rainy days,
I’m attracted to anything butterfly shaped – the symbol of transformation! Glad the boys enjoyed making their art.
How gorgeous is this as well as being informative for the kids?! Great art project x
What a great craft and set. I can see many kids looking forward to doing this. I love you left it out in the rain!
Oh, I love it! So easy and the result is amazing!
I love this, I’m sure my kids would too. We’ll have to give it a go. I love the Trunkaroo box too, I’ll have to add that to my list of boxes to check out.
I love that there are subscriptions boxes for everything these days! This looks like a great one for people who don’t have a huge craft stash at home. Going to recommend this to my sister for my niece. Love what you guys made, so pretty.
Lovely to watch the colours merge, a great activity with kids and perfect for a rainy day
That is so effective – will have to give it a go! The subscription box sounds interesting too – off to find out a bit more about it!
Brilliant idea. Making your kid painting these is ideal for them. You just have to find something that he/she really love and there you go. The colours of a butterfly may vary A lot! Which is great. Thank you for your article.
Eliza is obsessed with butterflies at the moment, will be doing this with her for sure
Never heard of Trunkaroo before, Jen, I will need to have a look as Emma has such a creative and inquisitive mind. The butterflies are beautiful, they look so pretty especially the ones on filter paper.xx
These look so pretty, We are learning about butterflies at the moment so I think we will add this to our list of things to do x
It’s beautiful! Do you think I could make this butterfly from glass?
What a great idea, one I think we shall definitely try.
Perfect for Spring
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a butterfly flying in the snow !
What a brilliant idea Jen, I love this! This is the kind of craft POD would really enjoy. She’s a creative little soul anyway but she really likes doing things that a bit different – she’d quite happily do it in the rain to be honest. Thank you so much for sharing, we must do this!