Salt painting is a super fun way to experiment with colors and paint!
I love any kind of art project! Give me some paint, glue, paper, colored pencils, clay… any of it and I’ll happily get to creating something! So when I heard that Emma Owl was putting together a Paint-a-Thon with over 200 painting ideas for kids I knew I wanted to be a part of it!
I mean how much fun is that?? All those creative ideas all in one place just waiting for someone to make them!
I knew right away that I wanted to do salt painting! We’ve played around with this fun technique before and it is just such a fun way to create. It’s simple and just adds a little bit more to a typical water color.
For this project I went with an under the sea theme… because its summer and fish are fun!
I find with this kind of painting it’s really striking on dark paper so whether you’re making a scene or just an abstract work of art I’d go with black, brown or dark blue paper. Its cool on white too… I just personally like the darker background better!
Here’s what you’ll need
- Paper- construction or other sturdy paper is best
- Glue- just regular old school glue works great!
- Salt
- Water colors
- Water
- Paint Brush
- Pencil
Like I said this is a pretty easy process!
First you’ll want to sketch out your picture on your paper… unless you’re going the abstract route then you can skip that part.
Now take your glue and outline your picture in a nice bead of glue, you can also spread it around a bit with your paint brush if you’d like.
Once you’ve got everything glued it’s time to sprinkle on the salt. It’s just like sprinkling glitter on something, go ahead and over do it!
Now tap off the excess salt. I did it over the trash can, but if you want to do it over a tray you can catch the extra and reuse it for another project.
Now its time to paint!!
You’ll want to get your paints nice and wet, make a nice little puddle of water in them and stir it around.
Now using your paint brush drip the paint onto the salt.
What’s fun about this is that you can mix the colors directly on the painting, you can drip them on top of each other or next to each other and see what happens. Just remember that really liquidy paint is key here. If the colors aren’t spreading just add a little more water.
Keep adding color until you’re happy with your picture!!
Now the one draw back of these paintings is that they’re not super sturdy. It’s best to leave them laying flat and if you really love the result snap a picture so you’ll have it! I have heard that you can spray them with hair spray to set them but haven’t personally tried it. For us this is one of those projects where the fun is in the process!!
You can create so many fun paintings with this technique! I’d love to see what you come up with,share your pics on Instagram and tag me!
Make sure to head over to Emma Owl to check out the other amazing projects!
Julie says
WONDERFUL painting technique! Love this!