Our girls were sharing a room a few years ago, and we wanted to make a big statement. We chose to paint a huge rainbow on a wall for a bright, playful take on the girls’ bedroom.

When my first daughter was little, I had no idea how to decorate her nursery (now room). I felt like I needed to know her personality first.

We’ve gotten to know her little three year-old personality as bright, wild, outgoing, and bold. She LOVES rainbow dresses and colors. Once I saw this rainbow corner accent wall from A Beautiful Mess, I knew we had to do it and paint a rainbow wall.

It’s a little rougher than inspiration I’ve seen because I opted for a more hand-drawn look, but it’s gorgeous. The colors bounce into the room and bring a warmth, like sun rays. And I LOVE how it peeks through the crib.

Read on for a how-to for creating your own rainbow wall, and check out A Beautiful Mess, too, for another take.

How to Paint a Rainbow on a Wall for Your Own Rainbow Wall Art

Supplies

• paint (I chose 5 colors); we used Behr paint from our local Home Depot, but anything of course works!
• paint brushes
• detail paint brushes; you can use artist brushes or flat brushes
• painter’s tape
• a small pencil (omg I LOVE these for around the house)
• some time (it took me one evening and the next afternoon; the walls were already painted the color we wanted)
• and some good music!

How-To:

1. Pick your rainbow colors.
2. Figure out the general shape; tape it out loosely.
3. Tape your top arc.
4. Draw your top arc bottom, and tape that out.
5. Continue.
6. Paint! Start from the ground up and over.
7. Let dry in between coats or move on to another arc.
8. Touch-up each arc color.
9. Get a thin paintbrush to touch up the white last as-needed.

Check out more details and photos below!

To start, I picked out my five colors and did some doodling to figure out the order I wanted. Once I had the order in place, it was time to tape out the rainbow.

I taped out little markers for how high I wanted the rainbow to sit on the wall. (If doing in a corner, tape the corner.) Then I taped additional markers to see how wide I wanted it to go. I had to adjust this a few times.

Then I taped out my full top arc.
*** Tip for curving the tape: If you pull a string of tape and snip every inch or so of one side, you’ll be able to lay the tape in a curve. 

Once I had the top taped out, I drew the bottom line.
***Tip: if you attach two pencils to the end of a piece of cardboard, you can make a ruler and draw out the remaining arcs. Make the cardboard as long as you’d like the width of each color strip to be.

Then, I drew out the remainder of the rainbow lines. I made sure that I liked where each hit, and where the rainbow ended.

Here, I should have continued taping and done the tape-line trick described in the ABM post, but I wanted to paint more free form (for fun and because I opted for more of a drawn-in look vs. a perfect look). Determine what you’re going for, and do what’s best for that.

Once I was done painting an arc, I’d wash my brush and move on to the next to let it dry.

I typically did rough, thin strokes starting from the middle of the arc, and built the color in after. This helped me shape it appropriately. It always helped to start from the bottom up and over.

After going through the whole rainbow, I worked on touch-ups using a thin brush and color. Here, I could have taped again and used the tape trick, but I opted to just paint it by hand. If you gob up a brush pretty thick and do a long, slow stroke, you can get some clean lines!

And there you have it! If you give it a try, share your creation with me. (If not, check out some of my rainbow wall art instead!)