Jan 31st is National Celebrate Art Day

I must admit, I did not know this before 7:30pm this evening. I was reading the hubpages posts in the art section (I'll put some cools posts at the end for you to link to), and came across a great post informing me it was Celebrate Art Day. I watched this video and saw the artist transform an old crummy back of a picture frame into a beautiful piece of art. Earlier in the day I had read another post with step by step instructions on making hand made paper.

I thought I would try making some paper out of the old newspapers and junk mail I have piled up here. I put about half a pound into the paper shredder. Then I dumped a few handfuls of dryer lint on top of that. I do like to recycle...ahem. I added about 2 gallons of water and let it all soak for about a half an hour while I straightened up and read e-mails. Then I took my trusty hand mixer that I use for smoothies and whipped up a great paper smoothie.

Next, I simply put globs of the pulp onto a big screen set up over a large pan and pressed the excess water out. I shifted the screen over to a pile of rags, lay one over the top and got my iron heated up. Then I pressed more moisture out and flattened the pulp. I put the pieces in the microwave to dry them out further. On a couple of the pieces, I pressed texture into them with various found objects while the paper was still damp, creating a Bas relief effect. They are just laying out overnight now to finish completely drying before I tackle them with scissors and glue and ink and whatever paint of the moment moves me. I think I'm onto something. Nothing speaks more to an artist than free art supplies!

Wednesday is Steve's birthday and guess who is getting a hand-made cool card this year? I'll post photos later so you can see how it all came out.

Here are some links to the neat sites I saw.


This is the video of the guy that made the art out of a frame backing


This is the hand made paper link