Salt Watercolor Art

I've been meaning to share an art project I did with my 6th graders a few weeks ago. I found it at this website. I needed plenty of school glue and lots of salt.

And some good stiff paper -- paper that will remain straight and firm if you hold it only at one corner.

The students wrote on the paper with the glue. They wrote their own names, little messages, a friend's name, a parent's name. It was sweet.
Then they carefully brought the paper to the salt table. There, we liberally shook salt onto the glue until it was well covered. Then we firmly tapped the residual salt away, into a big bin.

At the next table they sat and dabbed liquidy watercolor paints onto the salt. This is the fun part. I looked for liquid watercolor paints, but they were hard to find. So I used tempera paints with water added, and this worked just fine too. We had six colors.

I did my love's name, of course.

Even the boys who initially moaned, "Ugh! We have to do a stupid art project?" later did multiple pages because they enjoyed it so much. Success! With sixth grade boys!!
One student who had a momentary spelling lapse, did this one:

The instant I saw it, I asked if she wanted it. (She didn't.) So I asked if I could keep it. Because something weird and inexplicable appealed to me about this simple message. Keep Clam. Keep tight. Keep yourself contained. Keep happy-as-a-clam. Something a little seaside about that one. "Keep Clam and Love." Not sure why I liked it SO much, but I did!