BEST RECYCLING IDEA FOR ARTISTS, EVER!

A few years back in school I had the brilliant idea to "reuse" the extra acrylic paint on the palette that I didn't use before cleaning it off or rather not washing it (therefore, drying up and becoming useless - unless chipped off and glued onto/mixed into something).

Before cleaning up-I took extra scraps of paper/canvas/whatever and painted the extra acrylic on as backgrounds for future work! Even as an "ugly" shade - it could be used in a collage of sorts - or a test subject.

Now, to add to this idea - comes treated cardboard, shrink wrap, styrofoam and anything else that can no longer go to the recycling center (or if you can't make it there). They simply become canvases! Or stuff for sculptures or even in place of other things.

A few examples:

When my friend got her first tattoo - we lived in the dorms. We didn't use a lot of plastic wrap and therefore, didn't have any around to protect the fresh body art. I saved the shrink wrap on the little canvases I bought at the school store (cause I HATE throwing things away that I know can be reused) and voila - tat protection!

Now, I'm thinking soap bar boxes for card holders, toilet paper rolls for mini rolled portfolios, microwave diner boxes for actual canvas! Treated cardboard cannot be recycled and people have more than enough!
Not sure about styrofoam, yet - but we have plenty of that, too!
Traditional painters prime their canvases - why can't we do the same with other surfaces? Too brown, you say? Paint it white. Or collage with bits of left over scraps painted similar shades of acrylic!

It's hard to care for the earth when you know you have to use new paper for a studio class or hear how bad oils/other paints effect life. It breaks my heart and if I'm full of cheese - so be it! Feel free to share stuff you do to recycle with art (and supplies) in the comments.

Sure, half of you say, "Well, duh - we do that already!" However, maybe someone is struggling and they may get other ideas just from reading this - that's why I'm putting out there!

More Painted Windows for the Holidays in Hanover

This past Monday and Tuesday I've been busy working for another store who hired me for the same reason as Designer Gold (see previous blog entry).
When I finished up Friday at Designer Gold - I asked Mom if we could stop at Systems Plus to look at something. Somehow - I ended talking about my day with one of the heads of the store and she asked if they could poach me for the contest. I said I had to ask Designer Gold cause I wasn't sure that'd be fair.
After getting the go ahead and encouragement - off the computer store I went to work out designs. The lady at Systems Plus has a special breed of Irish Terrier so we went with that breed showing off Apple products. It was a bit of a challenge to get the dogs to look like the actual breed and they're still not perfect - but close enough!

Monday:




Tuesday:





I added in a bigger tree at the end - to balance out the window in the last picture - that's why it's at the end.

For the record: Window Markers are one of the worst @D miums I have ever had to work with, but it got the job done.