Plastic Wrap Rainbow Painting

I painted this rainbow trivet using plastic wrap. It was really fun to do and only took a few minutes.  

Rarely is a craft truly appropriate for ALL ages, but this one is! Toddlers and preschoolers will enjoy the interesting feel of the paint under the plastic wrap (and their parents will appreciate that there's no mess). School-age kids can explore color blending as they paint the trivet. Even teens and adults will find this project fun to do! 

I did my plastic wrap painting on a 6" square of wood to use as a trivet, but you could use a different size to make coasters or a wall hanging, or switch up the materials and paint a canvas or any other substrate. Affiliate links below. 

Plastic Wrap Rainbow Painting

Materials: 

• wood square or canvas
• Folk Art acrylic paint
• plastic wrap
• Mod Podge
• felt

Steps: 

Protect your work surface with cardboard or newspapers, then prepare your substrate as desired. I put a black base coat on mine. Cut a square of plastic wrap that is a few inches larger than what you're painting. 

Squirt red, yellow, and blue acrylic paint onto the surface, then cover it with plastic wrap. Apply a generous amount of paint, but leave gaps between the colors as shown. 

Press and squish the paint around through the plastic wrap. It's a neat feeling. As you move the paint, the primaries should mix to make orange and green. Mine don't show up well in this photo because of the weird lighting, but they're there. 

Peel away the plastic wrap to reveal the design. Let the paint dry completely. 

In better light, my orange is iffy, but you can definitely see green. 

If you'll be using your project as a trivet or a coaster, you'll want to seal it with Mod Podge and add felt to the back. If it's hanging on the wall, that won't be necessary. 

In retrospect, I should have used truer primary colors in order to get good secondary colors, but I'm happy with how it turned out. Part of the fun is that no two are ever quite the same.