painting with watercolors and salt

One of our favorite after-dinner activities is painting with watercolors and a bowl of salt. 

This is the time of day when Buddy Boy and Miss Bee have gone to bed but Junebug's still up, the house is a mess and I am feeling tired to the bone.  Painting with Junebug is simple and soothing and keeps me from getting grumpy.

We love adding table salt to our watercolor painting.  The salt looks crystal-like.  It almost has the allure of glitter, but with much less mess.

Junebug loves dusting the salt all over the paper with her hands, rubbing it into the wet paint with her fingers, and smearing it all around.  What a delightful tactile experience! 

She never wants to stop, so I give her two choices:  we can set the timer for two more minutes or stop painting now.  She always chooses two more minutes.  Then the timer sounds, she puts her painting on the fridge with magnets, and upstairs we go for a bath and bed.

If I'm thinking clearly enough in the morning, after breakfast, we might take the dried painting off the fridge and cut it up with scissors into smaller strips for later use in a collage project.   We keep a small basket full of cut-up former paintings and drawings, ready to be glued to a paper towel roll or piece of construction paper at a moment's notice.

Alternatively, with Father's Day coming up, maybe Junebug and I will write a letter on the back of this painting and turn it into a card for one of her grandpas or uncles.  Fun possibilities!

Comments

[Rick Wayman]

This is a great idea Jenn, thanks for sharing. Watercolors and salt are two of Lulu's obsessions, but we have yet to combine them. I'll give it a try tonight!

[Jennifer]

Glad you liked the idea, Rick! I hope you and Lulu have fun with it.

[Kibwe@expresscopy]

I don't know why I never thought of using table salt to make art like that. It works on all counts. No ants will bite the art work when it is complete, as they would with sugar.

It really is a good way to add crystals to your work. It's cheap and easy to work with.

The timer is an excellent idea. I think I saw that recommended somewhere for kids to help them learn to make better use of time. It helps. Thanks for sharing.