Using Salt Watercolors and Oil Pastels with the Sunflower Dice Drawing Sheet

Are you looking for a fun new way to teach your students about Vincent van Gogh?  I've used a Sunflower Roll & Draw Page, made by Expressive Monkey to get started with the drawing. 

I've gone over the pencil lines with Sharpie Marker.

               

Using oil pastels, I've outlined everything using a bright color.  I've also used a white oil pastel to color in the spots on the vase.

To make the salt technique a little more interesting, I'm painting the center of the flowers a bright color first, then a darker color.  In this case, I've started with green, then I've gone over the green with red (it's color complement).  Quickly, before it starts to dry, sprinkle just a little bit of salt.  Notice the salt in the second picture.  There should be a little bit of room around each grain of salt, leaving room for the salt to push away the paint.  If your paint is in puddles, wait for the paint to dry a little first.  The paper should "glisten".  I'm using thick copy paper in this example.  The paper wanted to absorb too much of the paint, so I had to keep adding paint until the paper was saturated enough to stay wet while I grabbed the salt.  I just used regular table salt.  Of course watercolor paper would work the best!

 I'm painting over the spotted vase.  The oil pastel is creating a watercolor resist.  

In the table top area, I've painted a redish brown first, then blue.  I've also sprinkled salt in this area.  

To make the leaves and stems a light green, I've painting with yellow first, then green.  

This is how the painting looks now that it is dry.  I had to brush a way some of the salt that didn't completely melt.  I think Vincent van Gogh might have really liked this technique!  What do you think?

You can check out the Sunflower Roll & Draw Pages here.