Salt Painting for Earth Day

I have another fun craft idea for Earth Day to share with you today. Earth Day takes place annually on the same day each year, the 22nd of April. Are you planning to do anything in particular for it? In the past we have done litter picks in our local community and we have also turned all electricity off for a set time and come together to do a fun craft or read a story together. 

Todays craft is Salt Painting for Earth Day. We love Salt Painting so much here! Have you ever tried it before? I am looking forward to showing this activity today and hopefully you will go on to give it a go too! It is really simple and we only need a small handful of supplies that you may already have to hand. 

Salt

PVA Glue

Water Colours

Black Card

Paint Brushes

A small jar of water

White Paint

A pencil

I highly recommend that you do this activity on card. Why? Well once you start to add your watercolours the paper could rip and tear. Cardboard can withstand the water well and will avoid any spoiling. We went with black card for this activity. You can use white if this is all you have to hand but you will have to review your star choices as white paint will not show up effectively. Take a circular object and trace around it with a pencil. 

This is a good guide for when you're adding your glue. Give children the option - they may be happier creating the earth shapes free hand. 

Add your PVA glue within your circle and use a paint brush to smooth out the glue and get an even covering. We sprinkle it out like above. The circle  is really handy for a guide especially for younger children and older children who are developing their confidence with art.

Make sure you wash the paint brush after use or pop them to soak in water if you don't quite have time to water them there and then. The glue will dry hard into your bristles if not and could ruin your brush. 

Sprinkle salt down into the glue. Be generous. You want a really good salt canvas to paint onto. The salt will absorb the moisture from the glue before your eyes. This tends to get a really good hold on the glue which means you can start to paint right away. 

That is always my most asked question whenever I show this activity - do I have to wait until it dries or can we paint straight away. You sure can - get stuck right in. 

You will need to use watercolour paint to paint your canvas. 

A top tip - once you have swirled your brush into the paint and have a good coating on your brush - tap it into the water and then apply down onto the salt. It gives such a great disperse when you do this. It is also more effective if you use a thicker brush. 

Once the salt was fully coloured in our Earth colours we wanted to add some stars to the backdrop. We did this using flick painting. Water down some ready mixed paint and tap your brush onto a pencil to create controlled flicks. If the white paint flicks down onto the earth - don't worry the colour will fully absorb and disappear.

Leave to dry. This is a process art activity where we really focus on the process. There is lots to learn too as we explore cause and effect and absorption. There is a change that some of the salt may flake a little as it dries so like us, with process art activities you can always take a photo to capture the fun artwork you create. 

Another option would be to leave it dry and then look at adding some more PVA glue to help hold all the glue in place.