Art Fun Cheap

I forgot to mention in my last post on shrink plastic that the holes you punch will shrink, too. So a 1/4-inch hole should end up being about 1/8-inch in diameter after shrinking.
For shrink plastic pieces that are to be used in making jewelry, artists generally use a 1/8-inch punch, which results in a […]

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Shrink plastic is used commercially for many purposes. Stacks of boxes are sometimes shrink-wrapped for easier storage and transport. Gift baskets are often covered with decorative shrink-plastic film. Disposable plastic drink cups are made from it, too.
Someone accidentally shrinking the clear top of a delicatessen container is said to have led to the invention […]

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Experimentation is the secret of having art fun on the cheap. Here is something I discovered by playing with things I happen to have lying around the house.
If you don’t care about archival qualities, nail polishes can be used as paper glazes. The glitter is usually very fine and well distributed, it’s easy to […]

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Making your own paper glazes can be fun. Most of us have plenty of art supplies (or potential art supplies) lying around. Sometimes we have more than we realize. Why not play with them to discover new ways to use them?
Acrylic Medium for a Waterproof Glaze
have some fine glitter that I plan to mix […]

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Art Fun Cheap thrives on comments. This post is a complete rewrite of an earlier post about how I accidentally deleted 10 comments while trying to rescue one comment (from a great Art Fun Cheap commentor) from the spam filter.
I think I have figured it out now. I just successfully deleted a spam comment […]

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Watch this video and decide for yourself if this is not the coolest thing you’ve seen in awhile. It is quiet. There are no words. The only sounds are the snips of scissors and the soothing gurgle of a fish tank in the background (sounding like a small fountain).
Even if you don’t feel that […]

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Artist trading cards (ATC) have been a popular item for the last few years. They are fun to make and fun to trade. Being small, they need not take much time and can be made with scraps from other projects.
ATCs can be miniature paintings or collages, quilts, drawings, photographs, or assemblages. They can be […]

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This is the coolest web site for making gorgeous flower paintings on your computer!

Just too much fun to play with!
http://www.zefrank.com/flowers/
You can also use it to make mandalas, kaleidoscope patterns, and such, in a huge variety of styles.

From palest pastels in tiny patterns on a white background…

to bold, bright patterns–even just black and white.

I’m including […]

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After the previous post, I ran across something that said that Peter Max never collaborated with the Beatles. It appears that the video I posted was by the artist (not Max) who did the movie, Yellow Submarine. In fact, that may be a clip from the movie (which I’ve never seen).
Any info you […]

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How many of us were influenced—or even drawn into art to begin with—by the wonderfully fun art of Peter Max? That 1960s icon of trippy posters is really an accomplished painter whose use of color is tremendously inspiring.
There is a lot to learn from Peter Max. In the 1960s and 1970s he pushed the […]

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