Salt Watercolor Paper Tutorial

The audience for this blog was originally intended to be Clara's grandparents and friends and family living far away who might want to keep up with her growth. Readership seems to have spread, however, to other stay-at-home-moms, Montessori families, and fellow crafters, some in places like Japan, Australia, Korea, Denmark and Mexico! To celebrate the new readers Clara and I are going to try our first tutorial for a simple toddler craft, watercolor with salt.

These are the invitations I made for Clara's little beach birthday party. The fish are sewn felt, but the invitations themselves are salted watercolors. I like the texture and beachy feel this technique gives to paper. Here's a closeup:When doing this project with young children, there are several things to consider. The first suggestion I'd make is to have several kinds of paper to try out. Avoid very thin paper (like typing paper) because it will buckle, fold and tear under the stress of the water and the force of some children's painting. Very thick paper, like a high-quality watercolor paper, may absorb too much water and then your salt won't leave neat patterns. The invitations were made with a paper that could go through our printer, about resumé thickness. In the examples below Clara is using a cheap white construction paper. You'll see how it buckles a bit when her paper is very wet. It turned out fine when it dried. My first-grade students used to get great results with our white classroom construction paper (a little better quality than the kind Clara is using). You will also get some variation in results with the type of watercolor paints you use. No need to get fancy--Prang or Crayola are fine. But there are also some really awful kids' paints out there that will disappear with one use. Avoid those. :)

Start by having the child cover the entire paper in paint. You get better results if you limit the palette for a young child--just give them the warm colors or the cool colors for example. The invitations were done with just blues and greens. Even taking out the brown and black will help. Clara had the whole palette for these examples, though I begged her to avoid the black--you'll see we end up with a lot of peachy brown. :)After the painting is done you'll sprinkle the paper with salt. If the paper has dried while the child has been painting, have them squirt the paper with a spray bottle of water to rewet it.You can sprinkle directly from the container, let them sprinkle handfuls over the top (as Clara is doing here), or give them little free-giving salt shakers. Be liberal with the salt, as it will make patterns in the paint as it dries. It will take about 12 hours for the paper to dry since it will be saturated all the way through. Be careful lifting the wet paper from the work surface so it doesn't wrinkle or rip. You can dry it by setting it on paper towels and later moving it to a flat surface like a bare countertop, or by hanging it to dry. Hanging may result in some paint dripping (which usually gives a nice result, actually).

When your paper is dry, remove the salt by rubbing it with your hand. Some kids do not like the feeling of this, so you may also try rubbing two pieces of the paper together. This method is also effective for removing stubborn patches. If you do have your child rub them together, make sure s/he is holding the papers up above the ground or that they are on a smooth surface--rubbing them on a bumpy surface like a sidewalk or playground asphalt will cause bumps and tears.

Now...what do do with your paper? Some ideas:
-We used ours to make some simple little books (all from one sheet) and to adorn a child's birthday package:

There are some cute and inspirational pocket books, books within a book and mini treasure-chests in the Summer 2005 issue of Martha Stewart Kids (No. 18). Sadly, not on their website. The books we made were just filled with folded scrap paper and sewn up on the sewing machine or hand sewn with embroidery floss through three holes along the spine.

-If you did some warm and some cool papers, weave wavy strips of the warm into slits in a cool paper (or vice versa) for a woven paper mat.
For older kids, try woven paper hearts.

-Make some envelopes! Here's a great tutorial:
Part One
Part Two

Hope you have fun with your salt watercolors. If you try it, let us know how it turns out!