One of my favorite free time projects when I was a kid was to do a salt technique with watercolor paints. I was much older than Miles, of course, but I figured Miles would still think it was fun to explore.

So here’s Miles, doing a little abstract watercolor painting, getting plenty of water on his watercolor paper.

Here I am filling his little hand with salt.

and here’s after a bit of salt scattering. It’s hard to photograph, and our watercolors aren’t very vibrant, but the salt reacts with the water and paint and makes a really pretty star or snowflake effect on the paper. Less is more, really, with the salt, but if a three year old boy is in charge of the salt, there will be A LOT dumped on top!

Miles loved to watch the salt react with the water and how the designs would change and spread over the colors.

Here’s Miles’ first creations.

I’m not the type to worry about getting messy, though watercolor paint is the easiest kind to clean up.

Miles’ last painting was soaked, so I had him experiment with how the colors run off the paper and you can create art that way too.

My sink may be full of dishes and my inbox full of emails I haven’t returned, but if I get to sit and help my boy paint for awhile, all is well in my world.

See that cup of tea at the top of this photo below? It’s my favorite tea cup and was handmade by a friend of ours. It fits my hand perfectly and is kind of like a piece of sculpture that travels from room to room with me throughout the day. I’m hoping that 20 years from now we still have that cup and when Miles, as a grown man, comes home and sees it he gets a wash of memories from his life growing up. Sitting at the kitchen table painting with me, eating cereal, stealing sips of tea from it. I suppose if it doesn’t make it through the years, it will at least pop up in photos from time to time like it did this one.

So there’s a little peek into our messy little creative world. If you haven’t played around with a watercolor salt technique before, chances are you have everything already in the house you need to go play. The darker the colors and the coarser the salt the better, in my opinion. Have fun!