Since my daughter was a preschooler, we ™ve thrown ourselves head over heels into process art. We do our best to focus on the process, the fun of doing, instead of the finished artwork, although it’s absolute magic when the two come together!. Last weekend it was just too wet and cold to venture out so Molly got busy in the kitchen with some salt art experimenting. Here is a little taste of what she got up to!
First gather some basic supplies: (affiliate links)
– table salt, craft glue, watercolor paint (liquid watercolors or watered down poster or acrylic paint)
– heavy white and colored paper (darker colors work best to contrast with the paint colors)
– paintbrushes or pipettes
Lay your paper on an oilcloth, newspaper or baking tray, to minimize cleanup later!!
Molly wanted to draw a glue picture instead of go wild with shapes and patterns, so she decided to practice her character first…. introducing ‘Hat Man’
The impression of the pencil drawing came through to the page underneath so she used this to go over with the glue. I made a mistake here by giving her a paint brush and glue pot – the results would be SO much better if I had a small glue squeeze bottle for her to simply drip the paint over the lines.
Grab the table salt and sprinkle sprinkle sprinkle – be generous!
Once all the glue is covered with salt lift up the page and shake off the excess. Now sadly this is where we say goodbye to ‘Hat Man’ as poor Molly, in her enthusiasm, let the page slip out of her hands during the shaking and it fell into the bin! very disgustedly, after all her hard work, she had to start over – mommy had to help sell that idea!!
SO she took the bait and had even more fun creating a pretty swimming mermaid – she loved seeing the colors come to life on the bright coloured heavy paper as she dropped the liquid watercolors onto the salt. You only need to drop a little color in one spot and it spreads along the salt, where it stops nobody knows! – that’s the magic right there!
The salt crystalises and sparkles – it's pretty special.
Sat art is all about the process as the pictures are not built to last. The colors will fade a little as the painting dries and the salt will crumble and fall off the page as it dries. SO take lots of photos of your little one’s creations for their memories xxx
LOL Michelle
MollyMooCrafts
xx
