salt licked...

Welcome back everyone! It's Kassi here with another Inspiration Monday!

Years ago, I used to watch all those painting shows on tv... I had these fantastic ideas that I would be able to paint amazing pictures if I watched enough of them. Well... needless to say, when I would try with my .99 paint set and free brush, my paintings didn't quite turn out the same.

However, the good news, is that I did pick up on some techniques... Like this one that I am sharing with you today.

What you need:

watercolor paper *yes, this is important!*

Creative Inspirations Paint

table salt

Step 1: put a glob of CI paint on a non stick craft sheet (or acrylic block, plastic mixing tray, etc)

Step 2: spray with water. Because CI paints are water based, this doesn't hurt the color or shimmer. You want a nice juicy puddle.

Step 3: Mix your paint and water with your paint brush

Step 4: Mist your paper. (sorry, the photo I took of this step really didn't turn out... so imagine me spraying my paper with a squirt bottle....)

Step 5: paint your wet paper with your puddle of paint.

Step 6: sprinkle with table salt. yup, just regular salt.

Step 7: ok, this is where it gets hard.... set aside to dry.

You all know how much I hate waiting, but it really works better when you don't rush this step...

Step 8: When it is completely dry, brush off the salt.

Because of the nature of salt, when you sprinkle it on, it sucks paint and water towards itself. When it dries, you are left with a patterned background. You won't get the same results twice.

This techniques works best if you use the darker CI colors. Not to say that the light colors don't work, but there is more of a contrast between the paint and the paper with the dark colors, so it shows up better.

Here is a finished project:

Paper: watercolor paper, white cardstock

CI paint: Plum, Blush, Sapphire

Ink: Memento

Stamps: Fancy Pants "Fresh Mod"

Punches: Marvy, Martha Stewart

Other: ribbon, rhinestone

The Sapphire circle and the Plum butterfly are both made using the salt technique. I used Blush and the ink pad technique to stamp the swirls. The sheer ribbon was also painted with Plum.