Turning your painting practice pieces into sellable art

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This blog is dedicated to every single one of my students who  have taken my foundation workshop in abstract painting in acrylics and mixed media, particularly those of you who were with me this last month - thank you. Thank you for having the courage to show up. Thank you for having the courage to take risks and play. And most of all, thank you for trusting me and allowing yourself to make crap art. To allow yourself to practice, to play, to make shit art and be OK with is. Knowing that getting in the painting groove, into your own process, and re-igniting your creative fire - for this weekend experience at least - was  more important than coming out with  perfectly finished art pieces.

So, here's a few ideas of what you can do with some of those little paintings you might have done on canvas pads or thick water color paper or acrylic mixed media paper. The paintings that perhaps didn't turn out, the ones that you've lost interest in, the pieces whose composition fell short but who you do no feel like going back to and working and re-working. We all have them. Now it's time to turn them into something functional and have fun doing it!

Turning your painting practice pieces into sellable art, a few ideas, but really the only limit is YOUR creativity:

NOTE: For all the following craft projects use YES! Paste because it's made to dry flat. Put a layer of plastic over it once you've glued it down and then put a brick or a few heavy books to glue it down nice and flat.
  1. Art cards ( buy the blank ones at a craft store such as Michael's and then glue on covers from your practice piece. Ahhh yes, now you know why I had the paper cutter at the back of the workshop room! I was cutting up my practice pieces and making gift cards while you were painting yours!!!)
  2. Book marks ( cut the art piece in a long rectangle and get it laminited)
  3. Artist trading cards ( I wrote a blog about that last year or the year before, check it out for all the details)
  4. Blank notepads with your art on the cover ( Last year I took all the old programs from the Culture Crawl and had them bound at a printer into little blank recycled paper note pads and then used my old art canvas pieces make excellent covers - especially when you use Kroma Crackle Paste, it looks like leather!!! Use a view finder on the art piece you're done with and find the sweet spot for the art on the cover of your card.  People Love to buy these that want a piece of art but are not ready to commit to a big piece)
  5. Collage - cut up the old art and collage it into other new paintings (recycle!)
  6. Magnets (cut the canvas pad piece into any shape. Re-in force it with cardboard. Glue a magnet to the back of it. Optional: Pour resin over it to give it gloss and depth!! On  a personal note I was soooo wanting to do this and make a bunch of magnets for the upcoming culture crawl open studio show but at this point I just don't think I"ll have time :-( )
  7. Homemade journals (cut out the best picture from the practice art piece on loose canvas and glue it to a blank journal. I like to put a sticker or my biz card on the back to give it a signature feel.)


Hate reading? Yeah, I have those days...Wanna see me talk about this live and see some pictures of what I'm talking about? 

Here you go... YouTube video link:

Turning your painting practice pieces into sellable art

This is a short video from a workshop whereby I am showing my practice art pieces and the things I 
have made from them and sold at art shows and fairs:


Creative Inspiration - Artist Trading Cards (ATCs)

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Artist Trading Cards:

a wonderful by-product of your practice art that you don't like!

(and scraps from collage and so on)



In my fundamental workshop: Energizing and Experimental Abstract Painting in Acrylics and Mixed Media we all work on lots and lots of little 9 x 12" on loose canvas paintings. Adding paint, removing paint, splatting paint. We may make mini masterpieces but mostly we make a lot of rejects or practice pieces - which I encourage as it really gets participants into process. The challenge is we end up with a lot of unwanted art!


This blog is just ONE of the many things you can do with your little practice pieces when you are finished working on it. My litmus test for whether you should keep working on an art piece is this: if it de-energizes me (ie it ain't fun no more) I know it's time to put it aside: WHen it's not working, give it up! and in this case - turn it into something else.


Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) are simply small little pieces of cut up heavy water color paper (or you could use loose gessoed canvas) in the size of a business card that you can embellish and decorate with scraps from your reject loose canvas pad paintings, among other things - collage papers, found objects, string, yard….the list is endless. My recommendation for adhering things is YES! glue which has a claim to fame of drying flat, that's why I prefer it.



(These pieces were fun as I added in stamps and words)

One year my daughter (I think she was in grade 1 at the time) and I made home made ATCs for every child in her class for valentines day. Hopefully by the time this blog post is due to post I will find them so I can share them with you.


Another thing I sometimes do is make a card and then glue my business card to the back of it and give them away as gifts.


If you need some inspiration for designs of your cards, check out this book: "The Artist Trading Card Workshop" which has tons of images that could leave you creating for hours.


(found the photo - I think we made nearly 30 cards that year for every
child in my daughter's class and both her teachers!!)

Lastly, keep on eye out for my "Creative Inspiration" blogs as I will post more ideas on cool things you can make with your practice pieces/aka unwanted art!