Regardless of the weather outside, we are in the Springtime zone inside! We have been enjoying lots of different spring arts and crafts adding color and a cheery feel to our home – which is helping us through these last few days (weeks) of winter. I am happy to say we all survived February! March, though still quite wintry, is a busy month for us full of Birthdays. And March, unlike February, holds the possibility of Spring like days. Dare I say, we have survived another Canadian winter! We decided to celebrate with a neat art technique: salt and watercolor
Our latest spring art project is similar to a winter one we did. We used a crayon resist technique for these winter art watercolor pictures. This time we added a twist by using salt and watercolor. Our goal was to create a rainy spring picture, so we used this simple salt on watercolor technique to get the texture we were looking for.
This technique is very simple, and excellent for even the littlest of artists.
Creating Salt and Watercolor Art
Since we wanted to keep our crayon resist technique with this watercolor and salt technique, our first step was drawing a picture in crayon. This time we used many different colors of crayon and drew spring puddles, rubber boots, and big umbrellas! We are really playing up the Spring theme.
Next, we painted over the picture with watercolor paints. For this activity, we used cotton balls to paint with. I like using different tools for painting with my kids, and this was a nice sensory activity as well. We painted by dipping the cotton ball into water and then the watercolor paint. The only thing to keep in mind is using a little extra water.
Once our pictures were complete, and while they were still nice and wet, we sprinkled on a healthy dose of salt. The salt absorbed some of the moisture, creating a neat “rain like” texture on the art.
We left the salt on watercolor for about 5 minutes and then dumped the salt off of the painting. The result looks really neat! It was tricky to get a picture of, but I can assure you it looks cool!
Using salt and watercolor paint is a true art technique, and also a great way to introduce little ones to absorption. Science, art, fun, and simplicity – a great activity for a rainy day!
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