You can make Green art from recycled materials

By Penfield Hondros

I keep reading through these hub posts and see very little on current art forms and what people are making from already used things. I have a background as a ceramist and a painter, and as such, naturally, I lean toward textural work. Have you ever wondered what happens to all of that laundry lint you pull from your dryer every day? Hold on to your cape Batman! Well, you may just see some of it in and on one of my paintings. I’m serious.

A couple of years ago I went to a Green Homes exhibition and was inspired by someone who paints on hubcaps. Later, I joined a painting group (see Spin D’Arte on Face book) and began painting on pieces of metal that had been salvaged from old cars. Oh the smooth glistening textures are far and away different from painting on canvas. Once the piece is top-coated it can be left for eternity to decorate an outdoor patio. I’ll bet you can’t do that with your sissy oil painting! One of my favorite pieces is painted on a piece of red metal from the door of a ’69 Mustang. One of my recently sold pieces (“Brown Eyed Girl” see photo below) was painted on an 18 by 10 inch piece of a white car hood.

So, I really did use the dryer lint.

I added it to the pigment mixture on the piece entitled “Water Flower 27” (as shown above). What do you think? I put it into an antique frame with a matte of antique beige silk (both of which I bought at The Salvation Army for $2.99 when I gutted an old ugly framed and matted picture I bought). I am doing a series of pieces using recycled materials and plan to exhibit it all together in the future. I became so disgusted with the ugly tote bags that the grocery stores want $2 apiece for that I got a Zazzle store and put some of my art on some tote bags and sneakers to make a fashion statement out of being green. I ordered 5 of them and am giving them away as gifts to get folks to keep thinking “green.” You can find that on my blog page and get creative with your own images if you like.

Lately, I have become obsessed with cigar boxes. There are so many of these beautiful ornate boxes that the tobacco stores often throw away or give away – especially in Tampa. I began doing painting and decoupage on the more plain ones. I even made a couple of pretty neat purses for gifts. I also paint and decoupage nut tins and coffee tins. Why throw it away when you can fill it full of coffee, sugar and tea bags and it looks better than the day you bought it? The decoupage is a great way of recycling all of those old magazines I had trouble throwing out or getting to the recycling center with.