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Alter Your Art
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Art is Hard?
If you think you aren’t an artist or that art is scary and hard, think again. When you think of art what first comes to mind? Stuffy museums full of “Don’t Touch” paintings? Frantic, starving artists sweating over their canvases? Long hours of practice to get a painting or a drawing “just right”?
If you think you aren’t an artist or that art is scary and hard, think again. Art isn’t just about making perfect brush strokes, learning composition, or memorizing the color wheel. Art can be messy, outrageous, and incredibly fun. Sound interesting? Read on and find out more about a completely nontraditional type of art: altered art.
Altered art combines many different mediums, or types of art, into one. Altered art could be a combination of painting, ink drawing, and collage. It can be little or big, realistic or abstract, fun or serious. And best of all? It can be done on nearly any surface you can think of: stretched canvas, books (old, yucky ones, not your textbooks!), fabric, boxes, tins, even clothes. The possible combinations of surfaces and materials you could use in your altered art creations are endless. “It’s fun! You can use all sorts of things,” says Caroline Hogan, 18, of Vermont. “You can look at what someone else does [for inspiration]. You don’t have to draw, just randomly put things together in a way that pleases. Have fun with it!” Make a necklace out of old typewriter keys and ribbon, an altered clock out of an old CD, or an original altered yearbook for you and your friends with a book from the free pile at the library.
“But art supplies are expensive!” you might be thinking. Supplies for traditional art can be a little pricey, but altered art? Cheap! In fact, many supplies can be found right in your junk drawer or closet.
The Basics
First, let’s look at the basics. You will probably want paint of some type, glue, and paper. Oftentimes these things can be found around the house, but if you do need some supplies use cheap items from the local craft store. Small bottles of acrylic paint usually range in price from $.79 to $1.99 and come in nearly every color you can think of. There are also fun texturizing agents you can add to the paint to give it more body and oomph on your page or canvas.
Another fun thing to add to paint is textile medium. This will reduce the amount of paint that seeps into the fabric you are creating with, and help keep colors bolder and brighter.
Now, on to the glue. There are a ton of different adhesives out there: glue sticks, spray adhesives, hot glue, cold glue, rubber cement, white tacky glue, craft glue, super-deluxe glue-the list goes on and on. It’s helpful just to wander down the glue aisle, pick up a few different kinds of glue and figure out what will work best for your project. If you are going to be working mostly with paper, a simple glue stick should work just fine. If you are making something a little more three dimensional try one of the industrial strength liquid glues and follow the manufacturer’s instructions for use.
Paper is probably the easiest product you can find for making your altered art. Of course, you could choose one out of the thousand different types at your local craft stores: mulberry, vellum, cotton, with patterns or without, construction, corrugated, and many more. These papers are all great, but look around and you’ll see a whole bunch of free paper begging to be made into something new and brilliant: newspapers, old magazines, comics, cereal boxes, old wrapping paper, tinfoil, notebook paper, old envelopes or used stationery, waxed paper, bits of shopping bags, or even tea envelopes. Once you start looking around you’ll have no trouble finding free paper for your projects.
A few other tools will be useful as well. Scissors, markers, a ruler, a sturdy table for a work surface, paint brushes, and embellishments. Embellishments are fun and really give altered art a lot of personality and flavor. Once again, free embellishments are usually the best, most interesting ones. You can use old watches (tear apart or leave whole), old game pieces and playing cards, old screws or other hardware, wire, buttons, ribbon, silk flowers; there really is no end to what you can use to embellish your piece. One note of caution: what is junk to you might be special to someone else in your house. Always ask before using someone else’s stuff to make your art!
Now The Fun
Now comes the fun part. Playtime! Look through magazines or at Web sites for ereative ideas. Get together with friends and do some creative brainstorming, and have a big group playtime. Use a subject you are interested in like skateboarding or beading or a favorite TV show and build a piece of art around that theme. Go online and do a search on altered art and mixed media. You will find a ton of great information and also some really cool photos of other people’s altered creations. You could go all girlie with frilly lace and soft pastels, or create something with a tougher edge using lots of dark colors and metal accents.
Katelynn Townson-Mancuso, 17, of New York City, likes to use bold, bright colors in her artwork and likes the freedom that altered art gives her. “I like altered art. It can be colorful and more crazy than other art . . . when you love to draw or paint, it makes you happy!” Katelynn’s whole family likes to get in on the art action. Her mother is an artist and author, and siblings Jamie and Justin also like to get creative with art.
So what are you waiting for? Start scrounging up fun materials for your first altered art project. Bet it won’t be your last!
NOT SURE WHERE TO START?
Check out these cool altered art Web sites and blogs for more information, photos, and inspiration:
For a cool project making a Bandaid Box and mini album visit man/publish/article_1021.shtml
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