How to: Watercolor Salt Painting
Salt painting is a fun process art activity to do with kids. It’s easy to set up and the results can be so beautiful! It’s also really fun to watch the watercolors run along the salt as you paint!
We love how vibrant and crystallized these salt painted snowflakes look. Adding the watercolors to this salt art makes these snowflakes just pop! And what better image to create with salt than a snowflake since it almost makes it look like a large snowflake on your paper!
Supplies Needed for Raised Salt Painting
– White thick cardstock
– Liquid watercolors – we like this brand
– Salt (any kind will do)
– White glue – this bottle size is the best for tracing our template as the nozzle is small. When you add the salt on top of your glue tracing it will keep the snowflakes a good size.
– Paintbrush
– A little bit of water
– Snowflake template
Watercolor Salt Painting
1. First, print off any image to trace or free hand the snowflakes yourself!
2. Begin by tracing the snowflakes with your glue. We like to use this bottle of glue since the nozzle at the top is smaller.
The larger bottles have larger nozzles and will let out more glue when you use them making the snowflakes too large.
3. Now is the first fun part – sprinkle on your salt! We like to keep a separate stash of salt for art activities. So when you’re done you can scoop off the remainder and store again for another salt craft.
Pour A LOT of salt over your image to ensure you coat every small piece of it. If you miss a piece then the color won’t run over that part.
4. Now shake off your excess salt from your page and you should have something that looks like this:
5. Now you can begin to paint with your watercolors! We like to use liquid watercolors as they are easy to use and more vibrant than food coloring, but food coloring would also work. If you’re looking for a low cost brand of liquid watercolors we like these ones.
TIPS FOR SALT PAINTING:
- Use a highly concentrated solution of your liquid watercolors. Only add a small amount of water to your solution to keep the color vibrant.
- Dip your paintbrush gently into your liquid watercolors to get only a little bit of watercolor at a time. If you have too much water when you’re painting the water will spill over and get your paper very wet. This is fine if you’re doing this art activity for fun but if you want to keep your art or are doing this with older kids we found it works best with just a little bit of paint.
- You can paint after the glue dries or right away – it shouldn’t make a difference!
- Use some cardboard underneath your cardstock to avoid getting your counter or table wet as the liquid watercolor will seep through a bit.
Now watch the magic! As you gently tap your salt with the paintbrush, the salt will soak up the watercolor from your brush and spread like magic!
6. Once you’re done, let your painting dry. Be careful not to touch the salt or it may come off. If you do accidentally knock off some salt,
if you scrape it all off you’ll be left with a beautiful watercolor painting underneath.
Share with us your Project
Send us a picture with your painted snowflakes at rcs@edupix.org so we can share with everyone!