Every time I go to Goodwill or a garage sale, I pick up artwork either framed or on canvases. I love art and when I’m designing I always start with the art. In my projects, the art always gives me the color palette of the room and sometimes it’s easier to and cheaper to take an art piece and create something totally different with it.

When I was cleaning up my office, I forgot I had three pieces of art that I was going to paint over at some point. All three were just $2.99 each so I’d call that a bargain. I pulled them out and started coming up with ideas.

I thought I’d do the two smaller ones as a set and do something totally different with the larger one. I started looking in Pinterest, as usual, to get some ideas.

I painted the two smaller ones in a matte black paint and then masked off geometric shapes on each one.

I wanted the shapes to still be black but have some texture so I mixed it with some caulk to give it a paste like appearance. For some reason it made the paint look glossy, but I kinda like it.

In a former life, I was a master modge podger (is that a thing?), so I pulled out my modge podge and decided to use old paperback books to create something with the larger piece of art. I didn’t know what, but I’d seen some paper weaving on Pinterest and thought maybe I could figure it out. I just played it by ear, cut up some strips, left some pieces bigger and went to town.

I think I might put some amber colored shellac over it one day, but for now, it’s pretty cool.

One day I was out walking my dog and saw some artwork at the end of my neighbor’s driveway. I couldn’t believe it. Two were perfectly good and I hung them up in the house right away. The third one was a pattern and style that wasn’t me so I decided to paint over it.

Here’s the piece I found on the side of the road. I know, right? It’s big and free.

I started off by just scuff sanding it because it was glossy and I wanted the paint to stick to it. After that I just put some white gesso paint all over it in a criss cross motion so I would have texture plus have a blank canvas to start my painting.

The white paint was a little stark so I looked up how to make cream or beige and I dotted yellow, brown and white all over and mixed it in to make a kind of beige. Then I had the brilliant idea to add landscaping sand into the paint to really give it some texture.

I started off just making smears and drips with black and burnt umber, then I got the idea to use some bubble wrap to stamp into the paint and highlight everything with a cream on top.

I’m still not sure I love the finished product or maybe I’m not finished yet? But anyway, it’s just paint and I could always keep adding layers to it.

I was thinking about framing all of these to make them look more professional. Let me know in the comments what you think.