Everybody loves a rainbow! This Rainbow Cotton Ball Painting activity is lots of fun, looks amazing and gives kids the opportunity to use and develop their motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination too. Painting with cotton balls is super exciting for kids and a great way to broaden their painting experiences away from just traditional paintbrushes.
Rainbow painting is a colourful art activity for St Patrick’s Day, Spring and Summer and if you’re studying a weather topic too. This gorgeous rainbow art is so wonderfully bright and cheerful you’ll want to keep it on display all year round.
Rainbow Cotton Ball Painting Tutorial
I love that Rainbow Cotton Ball Painting can be made big or small. If you’re working in a classroom or nursery why not make a jumbo collaborative piece of rainbow art. Just imaging how much fun the kids would have working together and how amazing it would look on display!
If you’re crafting at home with just one or two children rainbow cotton ball painting makes gorgeous wall art they can work on individually. If you want it to last for years to come why not use a canvas rather than paper? Kids will love to know that their art work is so treasured.
If you love rainbows as much as we do take a peek at some of our other rainbow favourites while you’re here too. Click on the photos to go straight to the tutorials and continue to scroll down to see how to set up and enjoy some cotton ball rainbow art.
Supplies To Make Cotton Ball Rainbow Paintings
- Rainbow Coloured Paint
- Cotton Balls
- Clothespins
- Canvas or Card
- White Card
- Glue
How To Make Rainbow Art With Cotton Balls
1 – Rainbow Cotton Ball Painting is a great activity to get kids learning the order and colours of the rainbow. I like to let them squeeze the paints out onto a plate or shallow palette. It can be helpful for them to remember the order if they’re squeezed out in sequence too.
2 – For this rainbow art we’re going to make out own paintbrushes out of clothespins and cotton balls. Clipping the cotton balls with the pegs is a fabulous fine motor activity for the kids and will help build their hand strength and co-ordination. You can use the same clothespin and switch cotton balls or use a clothespin for each colour.
3 – Paint your rainbow by dabbing the cotton ball into the paint and printing them onto your canvas. You can make an arch shape like a traditional rainbow or just do a section of the arc if you prefer. Following the shape offers a wonderful opportunity for kids to practise their hand eye co-ordination. They might like to draw a faint pencil line to follow to begin with.
We tend to think of cotton ball painting for toddlers and preschoolers but bigger kids can enjoy it too especially if they think about creating their own shapes. How about a rainbow coloured star? I bet something like that would appeal to the tweens and teens as bedroom art. Or how about making your rainbow art on a t-shirt with fabric paint?
4 – Keep repeating this printing process until your rainbow is complete and let the paint dry.
5 – Once your paint is dry cut out some fluffy clouds from your white card and glue them onto the ends of the rainbow.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this simple cotton ball art project. Arts and crafts with cotton balls are so easy and fun!
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