Bubble painting for kids: print the patterns of bubbles

Art technique

Catch a bubble’s pattern on paper

Blow bubbles in coloured soapy water until they foam over the top of the cup, then touch paper to them. Each bubble pops onto the paper and leaves a ring of colour, with the lacy pattern of its thin soap film inside.

Play in your browser Do it for real

Ages 4+
30 minutes
Blow, never suck

Painted illustration of the painter blowing coloured bubbles over a bowl through a straw and holding up paper printed with lacy blue and pink rings.

Quick facts

Age

4+ (children who can blow out reliably)

Time

30 minutes

Mess

Medium

Adult needed

Yes: to mix the paint and prepare the straws

You need (cost)

Dish soap, water, paint or food colouring, straws, cups, paper

On screen / for real

Both

What you'll make

Paper covered in overlapping rings and honeycomb patterns, each one the print of a real bubble. Use it as it is, or cut it up for cards and draw flowers or fish on top.

In Extreme Drawing

Toy box → Bubbles (in the full toolbox) has Soap bubbles and three bubble paints: Blue, Pink and Yellow.

Hold the wand and bubbles stream out. Wave it and you get more of them, smaller the faster you wave, flung the way you swing.
The bubbles float wherever the air goes, wobbling as they drift down; bigger ones sink faster.
A bubble-paint bubble that pops on the paper prints a ring of colour with smaller lacy rings inside, like the film breaking into cells.
On something wet, a bubble doesn’t pop at once: it sits there as a glistening dome for a few seconds.
Plain soap bubbles popping on wet paint push the colour into a faint ring and leave a soapy ring that paint takes less well afterwards.

Also try: the fan or hair dryer (Bathroom, also in the full toolbox) to blow the bubbles across the page.

Play in your browser

Painted illustration of the painter pushing a toy car through blue paint, leaving tyre tracks, beside a monster truck, a beach ball, a football and a marble.

For real

Do it for real

You need (for each colour)

A plastic cup
About a quarter of a cup of water
2 tablespoons of dish soap (washing-up liquid)
A good squeeze of poster paint, or 10 drops of food colouring
A drinking straw with a small hole snipped near the top
White paper or card, a tray, an apron

Step by step

Mix the bubble paint
Stir the water, dish soap and paint together gently in the cup. Make one cup per colour.
Snip the straws
An adult cuts a small hole near the top of each straw, so nothing can be sucked up by mistake.
Blow bubbles
Stand the cup on the tray, put the straw in and blow gently until the bubbles foam over the rim.
Print
Lightly touch the paper onto the top of the bubbles and lift it off. Don’t push down.
Add more colours
Blow up the next colour and print again, overlapping the first rings.
Dry it flat
Let it dry, then draw on top if you like.

Variations to try

Spring flowers

Pink and yellow bubble prints as flower heads, then draw stems and leaves with a marker.

Under the sea

Blue and green prints for the water, with fish drawn on top.

Gift wrap

Cover a big sheet of paper in overlapping colours for wrapping presents.

Bubble-wand prints

Outside, mix colour into bubble mixture and blow bubbles from a wand at paper pegged to a fence.

In the app vs on paper

On screen

The bubbles fly and drift across the page and each pop prints at once, with no straws and nothing to spill. On wet paint they sit as domes for a moment first. Bubbles is a Toy box tool in the full toolbox.

On real paper

The foam stays in the cup and you bring the paper to it. Prints come out paler and more random; more paint gives stronger rings. Outside, bubbles from a wand land wherever the wind takes them, much like in the app.

Why a bubble leaves a ring

A bubble is a thin skin of soapy water wrapped around air. The colour is in the skin, so when the bubble pops, the skin lands on the paper as a ring.

For grown-ups. Soap is a surfactant: its molecules line both sides of a thin water film and keep it from snapping, so bubbles last. A bubble’s colour lives in that film. Foam is many bubbles sharing walls, and where the walls touch the paper they print the foam’s honeycomb; a popping film pulls back to its rim and leaves a ring. On a wet surface the film loses water more slowly, which is why bubbles last longer on wet things.

Try next: what do you predict?

More soap?

Does more soap give more bubbles, or bigger ones?

Paint or food colouring?

Which prints a stronger ring?

Wet tray or dry tray?

Where do bubbles last longer before they pop?

A rainbow?

Look closely at a plain bubble. Can you see colours in it, even without paint?

For teachers

In the classroom

Bubble painting fits early years and KS1 art (printing and pattern) and a first conversation about surface tension: why does soap make bubbles last? On the whiteboard, the class can predict where the bubbles will drift and land.

Using it on the whiteboard Messy play ideas

Questions parents ask

How do you make bubble paint?

Mix about a quarter of a cup of water with 2 tablespoons of dish soap and a good squeeze of poster paint or a few drops of food colouring. Stir gently so it doesn’t foam until you blow.

Is bubble painting safe for toddlers?

Only if a grown-up does the blowing. Toddlers often suck instead of blowing, so let them press the paper onto the foam while you make the bubbles.

Why are my bubble prints so pale?

Add more paint to the mix, use bright colours and touch the paper to fresh foam. Food colouring gives paler prints than paint.

Can you do bubble painting with a bubble wand?

Yes: mix colour into bubble solution and blow bubbles at paper, ideally outdoors. You get separate rings rather than a foam pattern.

Blow bubble paint on screen

Wave the wand, watch the bubbles drift, and see each one pop into a lacy ring. Then mix a cup of the real thing.

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