Art Everyday: Scrapped

Okay -- I admit it.  I don't like to waste anything when it comes to my art materials.  We all know how expensive these can get and having imposed a strict monthly budget on my art spending, I have found myself keeping even the tiniest bit of scrap paper or canvass.  Some people would call me a pack rat.  I call myself frugal.

These little bits and pieces that get thrown away are still very useful.  Don't believe me? Well, here's a page out of my art journal that was made entirely from scraps.

This page was gessoed over twice.  And then I stopped.  I didn't know what to do with it.  Didn't want to paint it, didn't want to scribble in it.  That was when I turned to my scrap pile.  The torn pages that served as background on this page are what remains of a page I tore off this old book.  I had been using it to protect my work table when I was slapping on paint and some of the red and yellow paint I used sometime ago was on it.  I tore this page up and glued it to the blank white gesso "wall".

Even the face in the art journal page was painted on a scrap piece of paper.  And the paint I used to paint it with was leftover paint from one of the backgrounds I worked on.  Didn't want to waste it so I figured I would turn it into something that I could use later.

Here's a closer look:

Working with scraps has given me some great results and lovely surprises!  When I was painting this face, I was not aware of the spot of red paint on the scrap paper.  How can I not see a bright slash of red?  I don't really know.  What I do know is that I just painted that face, with my leftover paint on my leftover paper.  When I finished, I realized that the red spot was in the perfect place --- it went right across the area where the mouth should go!    And it gave the face just the right amount of color to make it more interesting.

The watercolor that went over the glued scraps were also leftovers -- my niece likes to paint but she doesn't really like to put the caps back onto the paint tubes (she's only two after all).  So her very first set of watercolor tubes all but went rock hard. I snipped off the end of the burnt sienna one, cut up one side and found me enough solid paint in there to give this page a single wash.  The cut-up tube of course is still in my stash -- I'm sure I'll find something to do with it later.

See?  You don't need to run to the art supply store each time you want to create something. All it takes is a little visit to your trusty old stash of "throw-aways" and you're likely to find something in there just waiting for you to give it a second chance at life.