My Happiness Project Day 24: New Use for Old Paint

I absolutely hate throwing away paint. I tell my Painting Soiree students that I don't care how much paint they use, as long as the use it. I even have "group" paintings specifically for left-over paint, that class after class works on. 

The other night as I was cleaning up after a class, one of the painters told me what she does with paint that is left on her palette. She lets the paint dry, then soaks the palettes (paper plates) in water and peels off the solid paint. What's left is really cool pieces of acrylic paint that she uses in other art projects.

So I decided to give it a go. I saved the palettes from Wednesday's class and let them dry for a few days. Then tonight I put them in a plastic bin and filled it with water and let them soak for a bit. I was very happy with the results! I was able to peel even very thin layers of paint off of the plate (or tore the plate away from the paint); and the thicker gobs of paint just separated on their own and drifted to the bottom of the bin.

Some of these pieces are beautiful on their own. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet, but I'll come up with something.

These pictures are of some of the paint that I peeled off. There is a whole bunch more, but these are the ones I like the best. They're drying on my kitchen counter.

I'm really inspired by these palette blogs! There are so many things in these forms. I love the big blue and white form with the shock of pink. I can't wait to work with it!

It kind of boggles my mind how much paint I've thrown away, when I could have been doing THIS with it!




Day 24 Bonus: Bruce Springsteen covering Lorde's "Royals"