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Salt Firework Painting

Level of difficulty: Beginner

Are you looking for an awesome art project to do with your kids? Capture the splendor of fireworks with this easy craft! This craft is a great kid-made holiday décor piece.

What You'll Need:

Let's Do This!

 

Step 1:

  1. Paint canvas with black acrylic craft paint. Tip: For a more cost-effective craft, you can use black construction paper instead.

 

Step 2:

  1. Sprinkle iridescent glitter over the wet black paint to give an extra pop of shine. Let dry. Tip: If using paper instead of painted canvas, apply a light layer of glue to help your glitter sprinkles stick.

 

Step 3:

  1. Let’s make the fireworks! Start the first firework in the top left area of the canvas panel. Leave some room (approximately 1”) around where the firework center will start. Make four small dots with the tacky glue.
  2. Add long lines around the outside of the four small dots. These can sprout out like flower petals.
  3. Place shorter lines in the gaps between the long lines. This makes the firework look fuller.
  4. Finish with small dots on the outside of the encircling lines. Only a few small dots are needed. Repeat steps A, B, C, and D for all of the fireworks (3 total).

 

Step 4:

  1. Pour salt on the wet glue, evenly coating all areas.
  2. Tilt the coated canvas over something to catch the extra salt. Remove all excess salt from the canvas. Tip: Give the back of the canvas a light tap to help remove stubborn salt. Let dry. *Salt can be reused for other nonedible craft purposes!

 

Step 5:

  1. Let’s paint the fireworks! Wet watercolor cakes with a very wet brush. The paint brush needs to be really wet for easy color application.
  2. Gently tap brush onto salted areas. The salt only needs a soft touch to absorb color.

 

Step 6:

  1. Color tip: Each firework should have a light, medium and dark color. Use colors that have similar hues. Good color combinations include yellow/orange/red, yellow/green/blue, and yellow/pink/purple. For our example, we used yellow, orange and red.
  2. YELLOW: Start the firework with a yellow center by adding yellow to the four center dots. Next, dab some yellow onto the large lines, keeping the color close to the center of the firework.
  3. ORANGE: Place orange color onto the center of the long lines, next to the yellow, leaving the ends of the lines white. Also, dab a little orange on the inner ends of the smaller lines.
  4. RED: Finally, place the red color on the ends of both the long lines and the smaller lines.

 

Step 7:

  1. YELLOW: Apply yellow to the dots on the outer edges of the firework.
  2. RED: Dab a touch of red color into the center of the yellow to tie everything together.
  3. Repeat with other color combinations for the remaining two fireworks. Let dry.