The Art of Playing

When my furry little alarm clock (aka my cat: Harmony) decided I had slept long enough and woke me up this morning, my first thought was of course:

"Ugh! I don't wanna get up yet!!!"

followed closely by:

"Wait, yes I do, I have new paints to play with & I want to check the Smash*aholics page."

Okay, now I am aware the idea that arts & crafts is good therapy and can improve your mood isn't exactly a new concept.. but it was still amazing to me :P

Anyway, I have spent the better part of my week playing with my art supplies. I have most of my art supplies spit up into two big boxes. One is for the supplies I like and use often.  The other is where art supplies get exiled when I decide I don't like them or need them very often.

I was working on some collages, wishing I had some Mod Podge & decided to look thru the "exiled" supply bin.  I found 5 tubes of Crayola glitter glue I had bought for some project during student teaching & decided to experiment with them.

glitter glue experimentation

I have concluded that their exile to the box of bad art supplies was unwarranted & they have now been pardoned and allowed back into the main box. The glitter glue worked GREAT for collaging. The glue dries clear & the layers come out pretty flat (which does NOT happen with glue stick collaging, trust me!) And you can mix different coloured glitter glue for pretty effects. I especially like the blue + silver + green mixture which looks like the ocean to me. :)

glitter glue + torn paper scraps

(on the right) glitter glue + tissue paper from my b-day presents :)

I also tried a water colour relief technique I had seen on pininterest. It called for a white crayon and water colour paint.. neither of which I had so instead I used the few Derwent watercolour pencils I had & a white Prismacolor. Which seemed to work fine :)

However, I decided I needed REAL watercolour paints. I had almost $5 dollars left over this week (after bus fare to visit a handsome friend hehe) and with it got the cheapest set of watcolours in the "back to school" sale section & two 57 cent bottles of acrylic paint.

fun with watercolours

I haven't painted almost at all since high school (10 years!) so I am having a blast.

Rainbow watercolour with clear glitter mixed in (cuz everything's better sparkly!! Except vampires...)

The two bottles of acrylic paint I got were pink & blue (my default colours I always get when trying new supplies). Sadly, they were out of yellow in the cheapy acrylics so I can only make a fraction of the colour wheel. But I CAN make lovely lavenders and I had fun making pastel splatter pattens. 

acrylic experiments

All of these experiments are on little bits from my scrap paper box which now includes all these pretty painted scraps :)  (cuz I never throw away paper)

I used one of my watercolour experiments for the hearts on this smash book page of me & my sister:

I cut the hearts out & just used a black stamp pad around the edges. What do you think? :)

(The smaller, shiny hearts in the middle are punched out of paint sample cards.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go play with my paints some more!

xoxo