Salt Painting

Try this activity which combines a little bit of science and lots of colour.

Have fun with this process art which is more about the doing than the end result.

Kids will love watching the salt soak up the different colours and blend into each other.

We used gel food colouring mixed with water which worked pretty well, but since reading more about this sort of activity I’d really like to get some liquid watercolours to try next time.

What you’ll need:

Card, cardboard or paper plates
PVA glue
Salt
Different coloured inks, food colouring mixed with water or liquid watercolours
Small cups or jars
Pipettes (I got these online)

Dribble PVA glue in a pattern onto a piece of cardboard.
Cover in salt.
Tip off the excess to use again.
Mix a few different colours with a little bit of water in a cup.
Use a pipette and drip colours onto the salt and watch what happens.

This is a process art activity – it’s more about the doing rather than the end product. The water in the colours makes everything sloppy. We didn’t give our pictures a chance to dry fully to see if they’d keep: the kids had more fun peeling off the PVA glue to see what got left behind.

Cardboard pieces, PVA glue, salt, pipettes and food colouring mixed with water.
Inks and liquid watercolours would work even better.

Pipettes are a useful supply to have for lots of kids activities.

Dribble a pattern onto cardboard with the PVA glue.

Cover the design in salt then tip off the excess.

Drip colours from pipettes onto the salt. It’s fun to watch the colours bleed into the salt and each other.

…Sprinkle some glitter over the top to get another effect.

This activity is process art – more about the doing than the end result.
I found that after a few minutes I could lift the PVA ‘skin’ off.

An outline was left behind after pulling the glue off.
Lots to experiement with this project!