Science Can Be Fun - January 25, 2020

I love fun patterns and textures in my watercolors. Table salt creates pretty little starbursts, but everyone uses table salt. I cannot be like everyone else. 

Brian works at an organic pesticide company with a chem lab (can you see where this is going?) and he's in charge of shipping and receiving raw materials and finished products. Bags of chemicals bust open in the course of his work and have to be disposed of because they're considered contaminated.  I asked him if he had any kinds of salts I could practice using in my watercolors. 

The next day he brought me home five plastic bottles. 

Potion-making ingredients! 

I decided to experiment with prussian blue since it takes table salt so well. I drew out several hearts onto paper.  Then I painted a heart with color and carefully sprinkled some of each kind of salt (from the lid because I didn't want to touch them) onto the heart.

Look what happened...

 

The rectangular shape on the right was my control - no salt! I also tried powdered vinegar (the smell is so strong I want to die) and different kitchen salts: kosher,  Maldon, popcorn (superfine) and Hawaiian black sea salt. 

Tomorrow they will be completely dry and I'll see if any are worth using in my work. Fingers crossed! There are some pretty good reactions occuring.

And hopefully none of these chemicals make me go blind...