Introducing salt paintings – a twist on watercolors for kids!
Salt paintings are a fun and engaging way to explore the art elements of texture, line, and color.
This technique is an easy way to take a two-dimensional art supply and transform it into a three-dimensional experience for your tactile learners.
Whether you choose to use a snail shape for your painting or cut your cardboard base into another shape of your choice, this preschool craft is a great way to get creative and explore the art elements of texture, color, and line.
Here’s how we made these darling snail salt paintings.
Supplies:
- Cardboard
- Utility knife or scissors (for the supervising adult’s use)
- Watercolor paint
- Brushes
- Water
- Liquid glue
- Dish of table salt with spoon
- Tray or cake pan (optional, but helps contain mess)
Directions:
- Use a utility knife or a pair of scissors to carefully cut your piece of cardboard into the shape of a snail. If your child is not interested in creating a snail-shaped craft, feel free to cut your cardboard into a different shape.
- With the cardboard sitting inside of a tray or cake pan, use liquid glue to draw a spiral line inside of the shell.
- While the glue is still wet, use a spoon to sprinkle salt onto the spiral line. Coat the entire line of glue with a thick layer of salt.
- Allow the glue time to dry completely.
- When the glue has completely dried, remove any excess salt. This is best done by simply picking up the cardboard and holding it vertically so the extra salt can fall off.
- Use watercolor paint to paint the spiral. It works best when the brush is fully saturated with watercolor paint and when the brush barely touches the salted line. Too dry of a brush or too much contact with the salt can cause the salt to be rubbed away from the glue line.
- Dry and display!
Looking for another watercolor painting project for kids? Check out this blog post on creating Birch Tree Paintings.
Needing more ways to recycle your stash of cardboard? Check out these Recycled Art Centers. These three activities can be used as one-off projects or used in a station-format.
Happy recycling and happy creating!