See stunning street art that only appears in the rain

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Thursday, March 26, 2015, 11:34 AM - Seattle's reputation as a rainy city is perfectly in sync with local artist Peregrine Church.

Church is the man responsible for Rainworks—the images that show up all across Seattle on days when rain is in the forecast.

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"Rainworks are pieces of street art that only appear when it's wet," Church explains in a video on his website. "They're messages or images designed to make people's rainy day a little bit better."

While Seattle isn't the rainest city in the U.S. when it comes to totals, most cities that claim to be rainier reach their totals in less days. What this means is that it rains less when it comes to annual totals in Seattle but rains more often, if you're looking at the day-to-day forecast.

"It's sort of the ideal Seattle art," Church said.

But just how does this 'magical art' work?

"So the stuff that make Rainworks is biodegradable, environmentally-friendly and completely non toxic," he clarified. "The essential ingredient when making Rainworks is a super hydrophobic coating. That is a chemical that when you put it on a surface will prevent that surface from getting wet.

Church came across the special substance while surfing the web on a bored—maybe even rainy—day.

"I was just browsing the internet and stumbled across a viral video and the video showed these really vivid images of red wine pouring off a white shirt and chocolate syrup pouring off white shoes and people getting buckets of water thrown on them and they're totally fine."

The video got Church's brain going.

"What can i do with this? It's a spray on substance so it made sense.. What if you spray a stencil?," Church came to a realization. "So if you put it on concrete well ideally it'd be invisible. Instead of the concrete getting dark, the water would just roll right off it and it will stay lightly coloured. The contrast can be used to create an image."