We have been on something of a watercolour marathon here in the Mad House lately, all spurred on by some new water brushes that I bought the kids (and me) for Christmas. They have sparked Maxi’s interest in paint again and inspired him to make this LOVE watercolour resist canvas.

I adore seasonal art and there is nothing better than seasonal art which you or your children have made that you can bring out year after year. This colourful LOVE watercolour resist canvas now has pride of place in my office and stands next to our fingerprint heart canvas and out fingerprint heart resist canvas, both of which were family collaborative pieces of artwork.

LOVE Watercolour resist canvas

Materials

Square canvas
Watercolour paints
Water brushes
Stencil, art masking liquid or rubber cement
Salt

How to make a LOVE Watercolour resist canvas

We started by making a reserve stencil. We decided on the words and image. We were inspired by this fab free printable valentines poster. Rather than use art masking liquid or rubber cement (which I would recommend if you want a clean demarcation line and to keep the canvas LOVE white) Maxi chose to stick his template on to the canvas (we cut it out on sticky backed vinyl on our cricut explore. Next time he decided he will do it the way I suggested.

He then started to cover the canvas with watercolour. He decided that he wanted to stick to pinks and reds and then to add some gold too.

He quickly built up the color on the top of the canvas leaving the sides till later.

Whilst the paint was still wet we added some sea salt. You can add normal table salt or other salt to for a different finish. The salt absorbs the paint at different rates creating a wonderful texture to the painting.

If you look closely at the image above you can see how the salt is drawing up the paint off the canvas, which is why it needs to still be wet. Allow the salt and paint to dry before gently rubbing off the salt and removing your stencil.

I have to admit that I adore the canvas just as it is above with the bleed through of the paint, but Maxi wanted to paint the characters gold as he was expecting a more crisp edge!

This was a fab project and one you could do with kids of all ages. How great would it be to mask an area and then let your toddler lose with foil and paint, the effect is amazing.

You can find our complete Valentine craft and activities for kids resource list here