The beautiful mountains of the South are a perfect subject for watercolor landscape paintings, like this picture of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The kid artist who created this painting used two special watercolor techniques. To make the sky, she painted plain water all over the sky area in her drawing, getting the paper wet. Then she brushed and dripped blue paint on the wet paper, and used a Kleenix tissue to pat out white clouds.

After the sky dried, our artist painted the mountains and the nearby green forest. Again she used lots of bright paint and worked quickly. While the green was still wet, she sprinkled regular salt over the painting, then set it aside to dry. Later, when the dry salt is brushed off the paper, it leaves a pretty mottled texture in the color.

Here's what you'll need to try these techniques in your own watercolor paintings:

• Good white paper to paint on...heavy drawing paper or special "watercolor" paper (it's strong enough to stand up under special painting techniques)
• Watercolor paints...bright colors are best
• Paintbrushes
• Tissues (Kleenix)
• Salt from the kitchen