In keeping with a lot of your goals to go on Artist Dates through use of Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way, I'll be presenting Artist Date Ideas weekly.
If you remember from Artists Date Idea #2, we assembled a creativity kit out of items collected from your local home improvement store and the mall. This week, your assignment is to create art from these items. Remember, choosing the day for your Artist Date and making it known (and respected) by your family and peers is very important for the success of this project.
Here are some ideas for the materials you've collected:
- paint chip samples: there are numerous opportunities for creativity when it comes to these little gems. Working in your art journal, creating assemblage paintings, using them in collages are just a few ideas you can explore. There's also a lot of opportunity to use them in scrapbook lay-outs, collage work and altered book work. Think outside the box when using them in your projects. In later articles, we'll talk about specific project how-to's.
- brochures: creating mini-books, altered books and cutting these up for collages are some ideas to consider when using brochures for art projects. Cutting interesting text out for your art journal, finding interesting pictures for book covers and in assemblage art pieces is more to consider.
- flyers: using these in collages and as backgrounds in layered art pieces is a lot of fun. You can also find a lot of interesting text and images to use in your art journal, altered books and collages.
- calendars: calendar pages outlining specific projects and store events are a favorite of many for mulitiple reasons. The graphed layout of the page offers opportunity for cut-out's for layered pieces. You could also alter each day of the month with mini paintings and tiny collages. Using these calendars as backgrounds in scrapbook pages, assemblage paintings and greeting cards are also ideas to explore.
- other promotional items: cut and tear these up for use in layered paintings, altered books, assemblage work, ATCs, book covers and more. The possibilities are endless.
- bookmarks: it doesn't matter if the book depicted on this bookmark is one you like or not because these can be altered into anything you choose. Use these as a base and let your imagination run wild with any variety of mixed media.
- postcard: again, you don't have to like the picture depicted on these. Use postcards as the base for any theme or media you choose. Paint it out, cover it up, cut it up or anything else your imagination directs you to create.
We talked about how to use each element in your creativity kit separately, which lends itself to a lot of separate artist's dates if you choose. You can also use each element together in your art journal, in an altered book, on a painting, on an altered object or whatever other mixed media art project you choose. As you can see, these elements work well together and apart. The choices are yours!
