Salt Texture Strategies for Watercolour and Moist Media

Usually, a portray that’s boring to have a look at merely wants extra floor variation, and the salt texture method is an efficient approach so as to add curiosity by means of texture and mark-making. Including salt to water-based media generates spontaneous and natural marks within the paintwork because the salt absorbs and pulls on the moist media, shifting the pigment and revealing the paper beneath. On this article, I discover the historical past of the salt texture method by taking a look at salt-glazed ceramics and discussing its comparatively latest emergence in portray earlier than demonstrating how one can apply it to watercolour and ink work. To check its versatility, I additionally tried the method with desk salt and sea salt, to indicate the various results they obtain.

Definition: Salt texture refers back to the impact created in water-based media when salt has been sprinkled onto the damp floor of the paint. The salt absorbs and pulls the moisture towards itself, abandoning gentle textured shapes within the shifted pigment because it exposes the paper beneath.

What’s the Impact of Salt Texture?

Including salt texture to a watercolour, gouache, or ink portray might add partaking new textures which might be onerous or unimaginable to copy by hand. The impact typically has a naturalistic feeling, for the reason that salt pulls on the moist pigment to create unpredictable shapes. This will create subtle starbursts, feathery clusters, or delicate traces, and is diverse relying on the kind of salt and pigments the artist makes use of. As an illustration, tremendous desk salt will create small gentle speckles, whereas sea salt flakes will take in extra water to create extra distinctive shapes.

Artists who use salt texture of their work should work rapidly for the reason that salt needs to be utilized whereas the paint continues to be damp. So the method gives the look that the artist embraces the aspect of shock of their works. If an artist had been to constantly use salt texture of their works, the symbolism of salt might develop into a part of the conceptual understanding of it. This calls to concepts about preservation, purification, and permanence.

The Historical past of Salt Texture

Previous to artists making use of salt to watercolours to create diverse visible results, ceramicists invented salt-glazing to complete their work in 14th-century Germany. Salt-glazing includes including salt to the kiln on the peak of the firing, which reacts with the silica within the clay to create a glaze of sodium silicate. It’s speculated that the method might have been found by likelihood, maybe by means of burning wooden from barrels within the kiln that had been beforehand used to retailer salt. The visible impact of salt-glazing is diverse, from shades of brown to blue and purple, usually making a floor that’s dimpled like an orange peel.

Bottoms-up cup or stirrup cup (Sturzbecher), ca. 1550-1570
German, Cologne
Salt-glazed stoneware, top 38.3 cm | 15.1 in
The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork

The salt-glaze was first launched to Japan within the Fifties by Shōji Hamada, after he spent years working alongside and studying from the English potter Bernard Leach in St Ives. On his return to Japan, he popularised the method and dedicated his new studio to utilizing domestically sourced sources, together with making his personal brushes. This established the city the place he arrange – Mashiko – as a famend pottery centre to at the present time.

The salt texture impact is commonest in watercolours, though it can be utilized to ink and gouache work. It’s tough to pinpoint precisely when salt was first used to create results in watercolour work, because it possible stems from particular person experimentation. A few of the most well-known watercolourists in artwork historical past – Turner, Schiele, O’Keeffe, and Blake – by no means used the method. It’s a extra up to date strategy to the medium, which hasn’t been exemplified in artwork historical past to an awesome extent but. This doesn’t imply that the salt texture method isn’t invaluable or helpful – simply that no key artists from the slender canon of artwork historic fame have championed it but.

Seated Girl, Again View, 1917
Egon Schiele
Watercolour and graphite on paper, 46.4 x 29.8 cm | 18.2 x 11.7 in
The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork

Approach developments for watercolours are comparatively new within the broader image. As an illustration, the invention of liquid latex within the early 1900s allowed for the later improvement of masking fluid for creating resist results in watercolours. Salt texture could be seen as a Twentieth-century improvement too, and maybe has a status for being a hobbyist or artful strategy to the medium. That is intrinsically linked to the market’s ‘inferiority’ of watercolours and drawings versus the worth positioned on oil portray. It’s onerous to think about any oil portray methods being ranked by professionalism. At this time, the imbalance of worth between mediums is steadily shifting, and there are many standout up to date artists making watercolours whose work defies this outdated sentiment, like Walton Ford, Chris Ofili, and Hiba Schahbaz.

Rocks and Weeds, 1951
John Atherton
Watercolours and black ink on coated board, 34.9 x 54.6cm | 13.7 x 21.5in
The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork

Demonstrations of the Salt Texture Approach for Watercolours, Ink, and Gouache Work

What Sorts of Watercolour Work Finest With Salt Texture?

Not all watercolours behave the identical approach when salt is utilized, for the reason that pigment sizes differ. Though it’s unimaginable for us to understand, on a microscopic degree, the salt has to have the ability to pull the pigment in to maneuver it. Paints with a smaller particle dimension work finest with the method, which are typically clear colors, though there are some exceptions. Greater high quality watercolours are normally floor extra finely, so in addition they might carry out higher than finances options of the identical colors. The perfect strategy is to check your colors in swatches with salt texture, to see how they react, earlier than making use of them to necessary work.

To exhibit this course of, I utilized salt texture to 6 totally different clear and semi-transparent colors from the Daniel Smith and Michael Harding ranges. As you’ll be able to see, the Phthalo Blue and Terre Verte had the strongest impact, though they dried in numerous patterns. The blue dried in a starburst sample, whereas the inexperienced produced extra dappled, spherical highlights – so even pigments that each work with salt texture might create diverse results. To show how in a different way these two paints behaved on a bigger scale, I repeated the impact individually with a mix of sea and desk salt.

Subsequent, I repeated the experiment with six colors from the Jackson’s Artist Watercolour Paint vary. Every of the clear colors – Blue Violet, French Ultramarine, and Viridian all labored very effectively. I used to be stunned that, regardless of being opaque, Cadmium Yellow Orange additionally revealed some salt texture highlights, whereas Impartial Tint, which is semi-transparent, hardly moved in any respect. I think it is because Impartial Tint is a multi-pigment color.

Since particle dimension determines how effectively a watercolour works with salt texture, reflective or metallic watercolours that include mica don’t work with salt texture, for the reason that particle dimension is just too giant. Another iridescent colors do work, comparable to Duochrome Hibiscus from my instance sheet.

Timing the Software of the Salt

The timing of the appliance of salt to your paint is crucial to the effectiveness of the method. To exhibit the way it varies, I ready some timed examples making use of desk and sea salt to Jackson’s Artist Watercolours on Jackson’s Scorching Pressed Watercolour Paper. Desk salt creates tremendous dotted highlights, whereas sea salt pulls the color in greater, irregular shapes. From left to proper, I timed my utility in 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and 4 minutes.

Sea salt utilized to Dioxazine Purple.

My first instance sheets use Dioxazine Purple, which is semi-transparent. With each sorts of salt, utility between 30 seconds to 1 minute created the strongest impact. Past 2 minutes, their motion was drastically decreased, though nonetheless seen as a lightweight texture up shut.

Desk Salt utilized to Dioxazine Purple.

Subsequent, I examined the identical impact with Hooker’s Inexperienced, which is clear, utilizing the identical timed intervals. For this color, I discovered that the salt didn’t pull the paint right into a spotlight, however really gathered the paint round itself to create some darker marks. The timing didn’t make as large a distinction for this color, with the 4-minute take a look at being virtually as efficient because the 30-second one. Due to this fact, you must also take a look at the timing of your utility with every color you wish to use, simply in case it behaves in a different way from what you’re envisioning.

Sea Salt utilized to Hooker’s Inexperienced.

Suggestions: For better management when making use of salt, it’s finest to not shake it immediately out of the container onto the paper. I added my salt to 2 small ceramic dishes, so I might simply take a managed pinch inside my 1-minute timeframe with ease.

Desk Salt utilized to Hooker’s Inexperienced.

Eradicating the Salt

It’s necessary to attend till the paint is totally dry earlier than eradicating the salt, so that you just don’t disturb the marks it makes or smudge your portray. Through the use of a mushy brush or clear fabric, you’ll be able to gently mud the grains of salt off your paper. If any of them are more durable to budge, you might want to maneuver them individually along with your finger or a small software like a toothpick.

Making use of Salt Texture to Ink

Salt texture can also work effectively with diluted ink. To exhibit the impact, I sprinkled some salt onto Sennelier Indian Ink and Daler-Rowney Black India Ink combined with a little bit of water, after 1 minute. As you’ll be able to see, the Daler-Rowney Ink had a extra pronounced impact, with the Sennelier being extra refined.

Subsequent, I examined making use of salt texture to a Dr. Ph. Martin’s Liquid Watercolour Paint in Alizarin Crimson, which could be utilized like ink. I broadly painted curling seaweed shapes, and sprinkled the salt in intervals as I labored. As you’ll be able to see, the salt created a dappled impact and pulled collectively some darker areas of pigment.

Making use of Salt Texture to Imagery

For my final examples, I needed to exhibit the sorts of images that the salt texture method could possibly be used with, to boost their impression.

On this first instance, I rapidly painted a unfastened nocturnal panorama, wanting to make use of salt texture to pick the celebs within the sky.

The little white flecks it created gave the sky refined element, with out the necessity to apply masking fluid to create the identical impact. Typically masking fluid can seem too uniform or crisp. Utilizing salt brings a extra natural or irregular edge to the highlights.

Maybe one of the crucial widespread makes use of of salt texture is to evoke the fur, scales, or pores and skin of various animals. For my closing instance, I painted the silhouette of three creatures earlier than sprinkling salt on them after 30 seconds. To finish these work, I might add one other layer to pick their options and atmosphere, after the salt was eliminated.

Suggestions: Salt texture might seem artful when utilized in isolation, however when it’s in-built amongst a number of different watercolour methods, it could tackle an expert attraction. Like most work, a thought of vary of mark-making and methods collectively seems essentially the most visually partaking.