Skip to Content

How to Make Rainbow Lightning (Process Art for Kids)

I have to admit that I stumbled across this Rainbow Lightning Art by accident. It was a pleasant surprise and has become one of my favorites to watch. 

When I was writing my post 10 Rain Painting Ideas for Kids, I wanted to do a bit of experimenting to see how rain would change different kinds of pictures. Unfortunately, it didn’t rain. I got cloudy day after cloudy day, just teasing me, but no rain. So I gave up waiting and decided to experiment with the help of a spray bottle filled with water.

I’m glad I did because I would never have discovered the beautiful lightning patterns that the food coloring makes as it rolls down the page. There is a trick to get it to fragment, and not just run in a straight line. Watch the video tutorial or read the step-by-step instructions below to find out what to do.

Picture of rainbow lightning on a piece of paper.

Disclosure: Adult supervision is required for all activities at all times. Some of the links provided in this blog are affiliate links. I will be paid a small commission if you use this link to make a purchase.

More Weather Art Ideas for Kids

Using rain (or in this case a spray bottle) to make art is a fun way to explore the weather with your little ones. Here are some of my favorite weather themed art and craft ideas to do with preschoolers and kindergarteners.

  1. Pasta Sun Art for Kids
  2. 10 Rain Painting Art Activities for Kids.
  3. Paper Plate Rainbow Craft
  4. Thunderstorm Art Project
  5. Sunscreen Painting

For more ideas, take a look at these 30 Weather Art for Kids.

Materials Needed

  1. Watercolor paper (not regular printer paper)
  2. food coloring (the one from Limino is concentrated which is perfect for any kind of play recipes you need food coloring for)
  3. A cookie sheet
  4. A spray bottle filled with water
  5. Strong magnets

How to Make Rainbow Lightning

1. Secure the watercolor paper to the cookie sheet.

Use strong magnets to hold the watercolor paper in place. This is important because from step 3 onwards the paper will be upright and will need to stay in place so that your lightning bolt picture doesn’t get ruined.

It’s not essential to use a cookie sheet for this art project. But I prefer to use one because it gives the picture some extra stability and also makes it a lot easier to move the pictures around.

2. Place dots of food coloring along the top of the paper.

Hand placing drops of food coloring onto a piece of paper.

You only need small dots of food coloring. You want them to be large enough that the paper doesn’t absorb them straight away, but also small enough that they don’t fall down with gravity the moment you place the paper upright.

3. Lean the cookie sheet against a wall.

Use a wall, chair or an art easel to make the cookie sheet stand upright. This is so that you can use gravity to pull the water droplets downward to make your artwork.

4. IMPORTANT! Spray the bottom half of the paper first.

Hand spraying a piece of paper with water.

You have to spray the bottom half of the picture first. Otherwise your food coloring won’t splinter into the lightning fragments, it’ll just run down in straight lines. 

Adjust your spray bottle so that it sprays a fine mist and spray your paper from a distance. You need little flecks of water over the bottom part of the page, this is the trick to getting this process art idea to work. If you spray too close to your picture, you’ll end up with a large area of water (instead of a collection of tiny little individual droplets) and it won’t work.

5. Spray the top half of the paper.

Food coloring rolling down a piece of paper.

Now that you’ve prepared the bottom half of your page, you can spray the drops of food coloring along the top. As the drops absorb the water from the spray bottle, they will get havier and roll down the page.

​You can spray the top half as much as you need to. Some drops of food coloring will need more water for them to finally roll down than others.

6. Watch as the rainbow patterns form.

As the drops of food coloring roll down the page, they will meet with the tiny water droplets that you previously sprayed there. When they join together they create the lightning fracture patterns on the page.

7. Let your picture dry.

Finally, when your picture is dry you can add it to your students art portfolio, or use it as inspiring wall art for boring blank walls.

Are you going to try making Rainbow Lightning process art with your kids?
Don’t forget to pin the idea for later.

Pin image of rainbow lightning process art for kids.

More Play Based Learning for Kids