Rain painting

We had a rainy day and I wanted to try some rain painting.  While I was on Pinterest searching for summer activities, I came across 7 ways to do rain painting but for some reason I didn't pin it.   URG!  Now I can't find it again.  I did find several ways.

The first one we tried was to crush watercolors.  That did NOT do anything.  I had bought dollar store water colors and they were so gummy.  All we could do was cut it up into small pieces.  We stuck it in the rain and nothing happened.  Waste of time.  They make powdered water colors so maybe you need to buy those to get this to work?

The second one we tried was with drops of food coloring.  This worked really well!  I let Natalie put a couple drops on a piece of paper and then stick it in the rain.  You need a gentle rain!  The rain spread the drops out very nicely.

Before much rain:

After more rain:

So pretty!  Now when you bring it it and let it dry because the pan is wet and the paper is wet, the colors just mix together even more and become very muddled.  I'm not sure how to dry it like what it looks above.

I may try letting them paint and then sticking it out in the rain next time to see what happens.  This was not the most successful activity nor did it take much time.