How to Get the Best Result Using Salt in Watercolor Paintings

I guess I’m a nerd. 🎉

what is the colour you used in the video? is it just come from one colour?thanks for sharing!

Just found your channel through Mind of Watercolour. This is amazing, I love adding salt to pictures and felt a bit scared to experiment but i'm going to have a go.

I wish you would have filmed them all in close up. Because it looked so much better/different when you zoomed in, we cant really see when zoomed out.

I’d love to see more salt sizes, mix of rice and salt, etc. so many variations. All I could think of looking at this was whale skin. ❤️ Thank you!

I enjoyed this scientific grid to compare. It’s a work of art in itself.

This was the most informative video on using salt... thank you soo much. Gonna follow you immediately...

Great video.❤
It's a pity we couldn't zoom in on all the results. I now want to repeat the experiment so that I can see what you are talking about in close up.

I found this highly beneficial as a beginning painter who is just now dabbling in texture. Thank you for taking the extra steps without preconceived ideas. The results were interesting, helpful & inspiring!

I have discovered a plastic, looped kitchen scrubber from the grocery store removes the salt easily with no damage to the paper

I found your site and love it. I like #1 first and #2 comes in next. # 3 is ok if you want some subtle changes.

Thank you for your time and effort in doing this salt study. My question is this: I do ink patten drawings (Zentangle). I want some background color like the lightest and medium colors on pretty dry paper. Does the salt totally come off so not to harm the nibs on a Sakura Micron pen? Thank you for your time.

I use an old credit card to remove salt. Thank you!

Really useful content! 😊

As I have difficulty with salts, hope to try out how you tested them. Also, the tip of letting areas dry out before using salt I’ll try. Thanks

I like this 👍🏻👍🏻

So happy I remembered this video before painting with salt today. I did a very small scale version of this test to check which of my colors would be affected by the salt and I saw that 4 of my 11 blues don’t react to the salt so I’m going to skip them in my painting. Thank you!

That was very useful, I'm going to try that out.

Awesome!!! Thanks for sharing!!! Subscribed!!!

Yes, more salt tests!

I have done this with salt a few times. Didn’t get such good results as you did. Too much water by the look of it. I will try it again. I liked the first and second. The third one was what I got. Thanks for the tute.

Medium wetness with small amount of salt looks like natural clouds in sky. Great video, very helpful. Thanks.

This experiment was very interesting as well as useful. I loved many of the results you created and am going to do some more experimenting with salt myself to see what happens. Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for the experiment! Cool! I love the one on thefar left and middle! That one is so awesome of an affect! I could use that effect in many paintings. Like the middle of a flower. JK FLORIDA USA 🇺🇸.

I love your nerdy studies because while I’m nerdy enough to want to know all this in detail, I’m sadly not nerdy enough to do it myself! So big thanks to you.

Brilliant. I have never seen an experiment like this showing paint to water ratios with timing. Yong Chen does an experiment where he paints six patches at once with the same watery paint. He then applies table salt to one patch and rock salt to another patch. He waits a minute then does another two. Then waits another minute and sprinkles the last two patches. After about 15 mins you can see what a difference timing makes. The effect of salt can be hit or miss. All very fascinating. Thank you

I absolutely love your scientific approach to art. It’s such a great balance and a great match for my personality 😁

I assumed that you would show how to get the effect of the thumbnail for this video? Will you be doing one? I really hope so. i always get so much out of your videos, Thank you Dr Oto Kano!

If not all pigments react, do the paint manufacturers list those pigments anywhere? Or do we have to try every colour first?! Daniel
Smith have some interesting lists of characteristics but salt not one of them.

Save the salt that you scrape off and sprinkle it over wet paper!

Any studies on the effects Salt has on lightfastness?

i wonder if your decanter is made of vaseline glass (or contains uranium oxide)--if you shine UV light on it and it glows, the glass was made with Uranium Oxide colorant:)

Do you think granulating pigments might also be a factor?

Loved this. Really gets me going. Now I just feel like doing a lot experimentation. Sprinkling salt on paint, painting with salt water, mixing sand and silt and salt to the paint, mixing different pants and trying it all with again (I'm sure you'll get some awesome granulation going with the right mixes of colours and pigments). And it doesn't stop there. What happens if you're not using water? What if you'd use tea, or coffee, or milk, or beer, or... with your watercolours (and salt and colour mixes and...)

Hi, i was playing around with salt/Watercolor so i re watched your video.which ia fantastic by the way👍
I have a question: will the results change if i use a dryer on the "paint "wet".would the faster drying time affect the results .? I do work wet and am hesitant to try the salt again, it didn't do the same as yours-i am working on fabriano or arches mainly, and my water is very "hard"water, lots of calcium in it, which is not great for Watercolor. I have started to use distilled water , which gives very different results,but none like yours! I also use daniel smith paints. Now that i wrote all this, I'm thinking i will copy your test to see the results🤷‍♀️ Have a good day

Thank you! 🌹🌹

This was a wonderful video! I would love a series on salt!

I am also interested in how does salt affect the longevity of paintings. Does it affect lightfastness, does it do bad things to the paper? Using salt is such a commonly used technique that it seems weird how I can’t find any good info on this.

I took your advice on this and waited a bit longer and added less salt than I usually do to damp paper today when painting and it worked great, thank you. I think I was adding salt too soon :)

For the best results you must also add some ground black pepper and a dash of soy sauce

Great video and test!

Never mind about being nerdy... Leonardo did say that painting is a science. If you're going to turn it into an art , it's better to know how to command your materials and not be a slave to them.

What a wonderful video! You did a remarkable job on it and are so thorough!!! I now realize that there are a lot of factors to get different results and the only results I was getting is the salt that looks like it dried on my paper - no veining out at all. I would like to see other colors used for demonstrations but this video was a HUGE help to me. Now I guess I just have to go and play with my colors, paper and some salt. Thank you SO very much for this video!!

incredible results

Very interesting results. Thanks so much for sharing.

Very interesting. I'm new to watercolor and enjoy learning about all these techniques. :)

Very Interesting and informative. I wish there were close ups of all the resu.ts.

I got a tip to use bath salt

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU ...