Salt and Watercolor Snowflake Art 

This salt and watercolor snowflake art activity is a great, simple science project for kids! During this project your child will love the using the magic salt and watching their own snowflakes come to life.

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The winter months can get long so we love finding art activities that kids of all ages would enjoy (this watercolor coffee filter snow flake craft was a hit with my kids!). This snowflake salt painting was so fun to make and really simple to create. You just need a few supplies and you will be off creating your own unique snowflakes!

This is a great process art activity (this article does a great job explaining why process art is so important for child development). Kids can make their own snowflake designs, we chose to make small snowflakes but you could make a large snowflake or even a snowman! There are so many fun ways to do this craft and they all turn out adorable. 

It is almost like magic when you sprinkle salt on your artwork and see the salt absorb some of the paint immediately and create ice crystals. I wish I had a photo of my son’s reaction when he saw his final product when it dried, he literally thought the process was magic! This is such a fun winter art project and is a great way to pass time on a cold winter day. These would also make the most adorably DIY Christmas cards.

Materials

• Watercolor paper
• Liquid watercolors
• Paintbrushes
• Salt
• White color crayon
• Baking sheet (optional)

How To Make Your Salt and Watercolor Snowflake Art

First take out a sheet of watercolor paper. I cut my paper in 1/4 so we could create multiple snowflake paintings with the paper, however you can do this with a full sheet of paper as well.

Draw your snowflakes on your paper with the white crayon.

Prepare your watercolors, I used about a 1:1 ratio of watercolor and water. If you want brighter colors you can use less water and if you want lighter colors use more water.

I put the watercolor paper, paint and brushes on a baking sheet so the mess would be contained when doing this with my preschooler.

Allow your child to paint their watercolor paper that they have drawn on, it is best if you paint the entire paper making sure the edge of the paper is covered

While the paint is still wet take a little bit of salt and sprinkle it onto your paper. You don’t need much salt and it is easiest to sprinkle it with your fingers to avoid getting excess salt on your paper.

Set aside to dry (this takes about 20 minutes)

Once your painting is dry shake off the salt from the paper

If needed retrace over your snowflakes with a white crayon to make them a little more visible

​Hang for all to see!

Tips And Tricks When Creating Your Watercolor Salt Painting

You can mix colors during this project, this is a really fun way to teach kids about secondary colors

If your salt isn’t sticking to your project add a little more paint as it likely has already dried so the salt has nothing to stick to

It is easiest to use a larger paint brush (think about 1/2 inch wide)

You only need to add a few grains of salt at a time (do not use a salt shaker to do this step), this is a great way for kids to work on fine motor skills

I gave my kids 4 different colors of paint to choose from and this seemed like enough, I don’t think I would use any more than 4 colors for this project

Happy Snowflake Creating! 

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