Salt painting is one of those childhood crafts which are totally absorbing, the ones that stick in your mind. I remember very clearly marbling paper in Junior 2 when I was about seven and finger painting when I was in nursery aged three. One of my fondest memories from teaching practice in the early 90s is working with groups of children to produce squares of paste resist batik; watching them as they carefully painted on the vibrant colours and listening to them chatter as they picked the flour paste off the fabric. The crafty moments which stand out for me are not always the ones that have produced a fantastic result but the ones where there has been a stillness and time to observe how each medium behaves, where all the senses come into play and the artist is a part of the piece – salt painting is one of the best.
For Salt Painting You Will Need:
- Paper – different background colours have different effects, we went for black and thought it looked fab. He thought this would work well for our firework pictures in November
- A tray or old newspaper to put your paper on
- PVA glue with a squeezy top
- Watered down paint – we used ready mixed poster paint
- Salt
I put black paper into a tray and he squeezed PVA glue onto it in a random squiggly wiggly pattern
We covered the glue with salt and then shook off the excess. I poured it into a bowl for further salty pictures.
He dripped colours onto the salty glue and watched as they spread. It’s important not to paint the glue but rather to allow the paint to drip off your brush onto the glue and then let it do its thing. He was intrigued to see what happened when the paint reached a fork in the glue road – which fork would it take or would it go both ways? Each time the paint stops spreading reload your brush and drop a bit more onto your picture.
The finished picture looked lovely – each of us sees something different in it.
If you’re looking for summer holiday activities you might also like:
Pebble and Driftwood Noughts and Crosses
Garden Crafts – Meet the Little Folk
How to Grow Cress Caterpillars
This looks fun, I’m adding it to my summer craft list. Thanks.
My pleasure Ella! xxx
Great instructions, I will definitely be trying this, thanks.
Thank you – do let me know how you get on!
I have never done this before but it looks really interesting, great rainy day activity…..
It really is! Totally absorbing – literally!
Fantastic set of crafty ideas here! I need all the help I can get this Summer – mine are only 4 and 2 so I’m a newbie to children’s crafting…..
This looks like so much fun for the kids. My two tots would love it as they get older. What a creative and great idea. Thanks for sharing. Love your little ones’ creation too! Kids love crafts.