How to do the salt on watercolour effect digitally

To get the salt on watercolour effect digitally, paint a wet watercolour wash in Easel by Zaweba, a free painting studio for Windows, then use its salt technique while the wash is still wet. Salt is one of several special techniques in Easel that make textures in wet paint, alongside alcohol drops, soap, cling film and decalcomania.

On real paper, salt sprinkled into a wet wash draws water towards each grain. As it does, pigment is pulled along or pushed away, and when the wash dries and the salt is brushed off, small pale, starry speckles are left behind. Painters use it for snow, stars, lichen on rocks, sea spray, textured backgrounds and old walls. The effect depends entirely on timing and on how wet the paper is.

The paper matters

Easel, and a watercolour paper surface. Easel has cold-pressed, hot-pressed and rough watercolour paper. Rough paper adds granulation of its own, which sits well with salt texture.

Salting a wash

Start a new picture and choose a watercolour paper.

Lay a wash with a good amount of pigment. Salt shows best on a medium to dark wash, because the pale speckles need contrast.

Apply the salt technique while the wash is still wet. That is the part that matters most: on a dry wash nothing happens, and on very wet paint the effect can spread out and soften.

Let the wash dry. A watercolour wash dries in about 20 to 30 seconds of real time in Easel. If you want more time to work, slow the drying speed slider, which runs from 0.25 to 4 times.

Look at the result and decide whether to add another layer. A second wash over dried salt texture can soften it, while leaving it alone keeps it crisp.

Keeping salt texture under control

Keep the area small at first. Salt texture is busy, and a whole sky of it can overwhelm a picture. It often works best in one part of a painting, set against smooth washes.

Keep the canvas flat. Tilting a wet wash makes it run and pool at the lower edge, which can wash the salt texture away. Ctrl+0 lays the canvas flat.

Use undo to learn the timing. Easel keeps 80 steps by default, and undo includes drying, so you can try salt at different moments in the same wash and compare.

Use Dry now to lock the texture. When the effect looks right, Dry now locks wet paint in place so nothing else will change it.

Combining salt with other techniques

Salt sits naturally beside the other wet-paint techniques. Alcohol drops, soap and cling film each give their own pattern, and they can be combined in different parts of a picture. Granulation medium and gum arabic are among the mediums, and the blooms or backruns that form when clean water meets a drying wash are another texture that comes from timing.

Masking fluid is a good companion. Paint it on to protect an area, lay your salted wash, then rub the fluid off to reveal clean paper, for example to keep a moon or a white sail free of texture.

Using salted washes elsewhere

Save as .zeasel to keep the painting with its palette and masks, or export PNG, JPEG or TIFF at 1x or 2x. A digital salt wash also makes a handy background texture you can carry into Paint by Zaweba, which accepts a PNG sent straight from Easel.