We’re mixing colors with a unique twist- forming an array of colors! In this activity kids will explore color mixing in an organized arrangement using liquid watercolors and pipettes.

Follow our Art for Kids Pinterest board!

Whenever you take the paints out, are your kids always wanting to explore mixing them? It seems like kids have a natural curiosity about color mixing. Recently we created our own colors with tempera paint and even gave the new colors names! The kids had so much fun that I just had to do another color mixing activity with them!

In this activity we practiced mixing colors using liquid watercolors. We did it in a more organized fashion, creating an array of colors! (This post contains affiliate links.)

See it in action here!

Mixing Colors in an Array

Materials for Color Mixing Activity

• Liquid watercolors (or a variety of food coloring colors)
• Pipettes or droppers
• Clear or white container with lots of compartments (We used this bead organizer. Ice cube trays would work too.)

Directions for Color Mixing Activity

1. Find a container with lots of little compartments. You’ll want it to be clear or white so you can see the colors clearly. We used this bead organizer I had in my craft closet.

It actually turned out perfect because all the little containers had lids so I could save the paint for future art projects!

You could also use a couple of inexpensive ice trays placed together to create your array.

If your container is clear like mine, be sure to place it on white paper so you can see the colors clearly.

2. Decide which colors you want to use for mixing. Place some of your watercolors along the top row and some along the first column. We watered our liquid watercolors down quite a bit since they are so concentrated. (Be sure to leave the first compartment empty.)

Along our top row we used: red, orange, yellow, blue, and green. And down our first column we used: magenta, yellow, and turquoise.

3. Now the fun begins- color mixing!

Use your pipette to transfer colors by following the array organization. So put a little red from first compartment in the top row into each compartment below it. Then put a little magenta from the left column in with the red and see what happens. Do this with each color below magenta to see what they look like when combined with the red.

Continue mixing the colors by following where each row and column intersect.

4. Optional: When you’re finished you can use the newly created colors to paint. It’s fun for the children to see how the colors turned out when used on an actual project. You can simply paint a picture on watercolor paper to see how your colors turned out.

We decided to use our newly created colors on coffee filters. We used the pipettes to drop the colors onto each coffee filter.

We let the coffee filters dry completely. The kids loved seeing how their new colors turned out!

We then used black pipe cleaners to turn our painted coffee filters into butterflies (just like in our chromatography science activity).

This was definitely a fun project combining art and science that I’m sure we’ll be doing many times in the future!