OK guys, here we are, our last day of Art Camp at Home! What a summer it’s been! From humble pets, animal adventures around the world, and self exploration, to amazing oceans, sea myths, and how to spread kindness with art, to a world of inspiration in our gardens, and now a week of wonder from the skies above us.
We are ending the week, and art camp, with some rainbows… All I want you to do today is to make a rainbow… you can paint one, make one, draw one, sculpt one, collage one… you can make many! I am sure that you have learned plenty of techniques and styles, and found lots of ideas, over the last 6 weeks, but as ever, I am to guide you with some wonderful ideas!
Rainbows fit our theme of Up Above Us perfectly, but they are also perfect for the times too. Rainbows in windows became the symbol of love, thanks and hope in this weird and scary time of the current pandemic. We all love rainbows; they are colourful, happy, bright and positive emblems, and we are going to celebrate them and us today.
Here are 26 ideas to make beautiful rainbow art. Have fun, and please share – whether you make this today or in 6 months time, I would absolutely love to see what you make!
Rainbow Art
Rainbow Collage
This is my all time favourite rainbow art project! It works for any ages, even adults, it’s a wonderful collaborative project, you can make it any size, you can use any materials, you can do it all at once, or over a long period of time. It always looks amazing, no matter what!
P.S – this photo is from a collage Jake did when he was 18 months old, and yes I know the rainbow is the wrong way around and the purple should be on the inside, but, hey – it still looks great, right?!
What you need:
- Any size paper or card
- Paint or pens
- Glue
- Scissors
- Any materials that you want to collage with
First of all, colour or paint a rainbow on your card or paper. Next, you need to collect your collage materials – You can collect craft materials like pompoms, sequins, pipe cleaners, and craft paper, or natural materials like leaves and flowers. You could cut out colours from old magazines. Or you could do a mix of all of it. Finally, stick down your objects or paper onto the corresponding colour and keep building it up until you are happy!
How about making a rainbow collage on a letter instead? Like this –
Frank Stellas Deconstructed Rainbow Collages
Oh! This is such a wonderful art project from Barley & Birch… This combines an artist study with hands on, open ended creativity – what is not to love?! Click over to their post for all the details; there is a really great tutorial!
Simple Rainbow Heart
Ooh this is so pretty! If you jump over to Color Me Happy – there is a mesmerising video of how to paint this beautiful rainbow heart!
Rainbow Painted Pebbles
These remind me of the night sky painted rocks from earlier in the week. I love how simple yet effective these are; the silhouetted trees look striking against the rainbow sky, and the little speckles of white could be twinkling stars or falling snowflakes. These would make a lovely little gift for someone, or you could even leave them in your village or woodland for people to find.
Sponge Painted Rainbow
Kids Craft Room share how they used sponges to paint pretty rainbows. The post is great and talks about all the things children can learn from this activity, and ways to extend and adapt it too.
Paul Klee Inspired Rainbow Squares
Paul Klee is an artist known for his paintings that explore lines, shape and colour in an abstract way, with influences of cubism and expressionism…. This post from ArtBar Blog shows how children can be inspired by Klee’s work to make their own abstract, rainbow coloured work! I love it!
Rainbow Leaf Prints
This is such a great idea from Kitchen Table Classroom; you just need coloured pens, leaves, a damp towel, and paper. The leaf prints are so pretty, and I know my kids would spend ages experimenting with different colours and leaves to see how they turn out. I should add this to our Art inspired by Leaves post!
Murakami Rainbow Flowers
Hopefully you remember our lesson on Takashi Murakami for last week? If not, no problem, now is the perfect time to give it a try! Read the post here, which also has templates and colouring pages, and then have a go at making your own bright and bold Murakami rainbow flower!
Rainbow Dresses
Let’s get inspired by the lovely Marnie Makes over on Etsy, and have a go at turning rainbows into pretty dresses for some simple cartoon characters.
I would recommend using a pencil to draw out the rainbow shape, then add legs, a body, arms and a face; creating the character as you go along. You could make this a self portrait piece, or draw your best friend, or just make up a whole new person! Look how simple the drawing of the person is here; have a go at copying Marnie’s style, or just stick with a simple stick person! Next, colour in your rainbow with paints, pens, pastels or pencils, and go over your pencil drawing f your person with a black fine liner.
What else could you turn a rainbow into? How about an umbrella… read on:
Rainbow Umbrella Illustrations
I saw this idea on Mélopie, where they were inspired by this lovely illustration by Manka Kasha on Instagram, and had the children make their own version. The main point is that the rainbow is sheltering the character from the rain. Aside from that, you could choose any character, and you can use any medium to make your picture. It’s such a sweet idea!
Watercolour Rainbow Cats
These colourful cats are just terrific! Of course you could use this as inspiration and do any kind of animals, but I do think the simple cat drawings here are really effective!
This will work better on watercolour paper, but even copy paper will work. Use a fine liner (pencil first if you want) to draw a bunch of cats – 2 vertical lines, pointy ears and a little flat head in between, 2 little circles for eyes and a couple of whiskers on the side.
Next, use wet watercolours to paint your cats, leaving the little eyes white; use all the rainbow colours, going from one side to the other in the ROYGBIV order…. or try a different colour palette – maybe all different shades of green and blue, or something else you like the idea of!
Watercolour Rainbow Hearts
If you like the black ink and watercolour style, try a simple rainbow heart… or use the technique to paint something else. Experiment in your journal; use different amounts of water to see how the paint responds, try splatting the paint, or blowing it with a straw. Have fun and see what you can make!
Optical Rainbow Heart Art
Optical art is always fun to make and this is an easy way to start. You might need a grown up to draw out the stripes, or you can have a go yourself. Then simply colour in the stripes all the colours of the rainbow. You can use any paint, pens, pencils, pastels or anything else.
This is a great mindful activity as well as looking awesome!
Cotton Ball Printed Rainbows
Easy Peasy and Fun show us how to use cotton balls to print a rainbow, and it looks great.
You could also print with corks, cotton buds (q-tips), the rubber end of a pencil or anything else you can think of. Of course, you could use a paint brush too! This is a great way to explore pointillism for kids!
Rainbow Blob People
Let’s get inspired by Tim Colmant’s graphic design work, and make simple rainbow blob people! I’m pretty sure these have been made on the computer – which you could totally try! Digital Art is great! Otherwise here is how I’d suggest making these:
You could either paint these, or use coloured paper. Either way, make your blob shapes, if using paper, stick them down so they over lap. Think about which colours go well next to each other, and try to include as many bright colours as you can! Then, simply use a black felt tip to draw the little smiling faces on! Done.
Rolling Pin Rainbow Art
Check out this lovely idea from Crafty Morning – it’s perfect for little artists, or those who don’t like to get messy.
Q-Tip Pointilism Rainbow Tree
Watch this video to find out how to paint a beautiful rainbow tree using Q-tips/cotton buds! It looks so good, and it’s a great process for adults and children.
Romero Britto Inspired Rainbows
Let’s revisit Romero Britto’s colourful art and make some rainbows in his delightful style! Whilst her might not explicitly paint rainbows, Britto’s happy paintings embody the colours and the spirit of rainbow art in the most fun way!
Drip, Drizzle, Splatter...
Experiment with process art to make colourful rainbow pictures. You could study Jackson Pollock (pictured at the top of the post) and splatter and drizzle lots of paint. Or have a go at crushed chalk painting, pour painting, or painting with string. Tape resist painting looks fab with a rainbow theme… click this post for all the ideas!
Rainbow Crafts
Rainbow Heart Sun Catchers
Have a go at these pretty sun catchers from Twig and Toadstool… they are perfect to brighten up your windows, especially during the winter!
Build a Lego Rainbow
Lego is a great material to experiment with sculpture making. You can pretty much make anything with Lego bricks, including art! Have a go at building a lego rainbow; I’m sure there’s a few ways to do this!
I also love this lego rainbow heart card, which would make a perfect gift…
Lego / Plastic Toy Collage
This is a fab way to use lego bricks, or other plastic toys! If you are using lego, you can just click the bricks on. If you are using other toys, you may need some strong all purpose glue to stick them together.
Rainbow Hearts Mobile
Cut hearts out of coloured paper, and thread them onto string to make this beautiful rainbow heart mobile or wall hanging! Is super pretty, and great for fine motor development and crafty skills!
Rainbow Bird
This is beautiful! Art Campla share how to make this using paint chips, head over there to read all about it!
Rainbow Button Collage
There are so many rainbow button collages on Pinterest, from hot air balloons, to trees, to letters, to rainbows themselves… I really like this night sky rainbow tree from Busted Button, but do have a look on big wide web to look at some others, and then have a go!
Kandinsky Rainbow Paper Flowers
I shared this lovely Kandisnksy Paper Flowers in the flower craft post I did for the ‘In the Garden’ week, but they are perfect for rainbow crafts too, so I am sharing them again! Hop over to Twitchetts for the instructions.
I think that’s it – I hope you like these ideas and have found at least one to be inspired by. Don’t forget to come and share what you make at any time.
Certificate!
Here is a certificate of participation for you to print out and keep if you so wish! Thanks for going on this art adventure with me 🙂
To print, click the image and it will take you to the full size version.
Afternoon Viewing
I was initially thinking of finding an animation full of shiny rainbows, when I remembered this short film, called Rainbow Crow, and while it might not feature a typical rainbow, it is absolutely perfect to finish Art Camp with… it has elements of all our themes from the last 6 weeks, and it reminds us there is beauty in everything, if we look closely.
Afternoon Reading
Here is a sweet story that explores imagination, colour, nature and science in a gentle way, with a happy ending…
Journal Prompts
Rainbow journal prompts:
- doodle your whole page with rainbows
- paint a rainbow watercolour background on some of your journal pages to draw on later
- write about what’s at the end of a rainbow
- write a poem about a rainbow, try an acrostic
- write about what rainbows symbolise for you
- draw rainbow hearts, handprints, smiley faces, flowers or anything else…
As well as a few rainbow prompts today, take some time to reflect on your experience of art camp –
- what have you enjoyed?
- what didn’t you get around to that you would still like to try?
- what was your favourite art project?
- what new techniques or styles have you learned?
- what have you got better at?
That's All Folks...
That’s it, we are done, I am signing off. Art Camp at Home is over for this year… I actually feel a bit sad about that, but its on to new things now…
I hope you have enjoyed Art Camp; it has been strange doing it online, and I have missed getting to know the kids and seeing the work they create, but it has been nice to see bits and pieces you guys have shared on Facebook and instagram, so thank you for that!
I have shared a lot of ideas with you over the last 6 weeks, and I hope you will be able to come back on a rainy day or when your kids are feeling creative and use the posts to inspire and guide you through more art adventures. If you have any feedback, good or bad, I’d love to hear it as it will only help me improve for next time; do feel free to drop me an email, or leave a comment.
There will be lots more from both me and Nick in the coming months, including some home education curriculums, adult art courses, creative engineering lessons, and more… but for now campers, its over and out, and see you next time!
Love, Katherine x
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