Sandcastle Salt and Watercolor Painting Art Project

Beach, Sand, Sandcastles & the Ocean-these bring back great memories of my summers growing up in south Louisiana!

These are the inspiration for this Sandcastle Art Project! I originally saw this project at Creator’s Joy-Sandcastles Art Project, their project is made with acrylic paint and sand paper. (LOVE THAT IDEA-going to try that next time). But I wanted to use some of the brown watercolor paint that we made with re-purposed dead markers from our “Marker Heaven” box. (How to Turn Markers into Watercolors) I had LOTS of brown & blue dried markers that I made into watercolors and this seemed like a great project to use them on!

Salt on watercolors gives such a cool affect-this would be perfect for giving a sand texture look on our painting. This project took two 1 hour/15 minute classes.

Here is how we did it…

Supplies: Watercolor paints, Liquid Watercolors-brown & blue (made from re-purposed markers), Table Salt, Watercolor Paper, paint brushes, water cups

Objectives: Students will explore the experimental watercolor painting technique of adding salt to wet watercolors. They will use this technique to simulate visual texture on their sandcastle paintings. They will recall from memory building sandcastles and draw their own version of a sandcastle by the ocean.

Delivery:

Ask students: Do you remember a time when you went to the beach and played in the sand. Did you ever make a sandcastle? what types of tools did you use to create it?
Texture is an element of art. Texture can be both real or “Tactile” (you can touch & FEEL it) or it can be “Visual” (you can only SEE the texture).
Look at and provide reference pictures of sandcastles.
Draw the sandcastle, beach, ocean & other details (crabs, pails, shovels, sea shells, starfish, etc.) in pencil first.
Outline all lines in permanent marker.
Use liquid brown watercolor to paint the sandcastle **While the paint is still very wet, sprinkle salt into the paint-don’t go too crazy with the salt! LET DRY -or the paints will bleed together.
Use liquid blue watercolor to paint the sky OR if they want to paint a sunset, use the palette of watercolors.
Finish painting with the palette of watercolors.