Artsy Fartsy

The other day, I was at Home Goods browsing the art department when a fellow shopper (who also happened to be an older, middle-aged man), asked me if I knew anything about art. "I see people picking things up and putting them in their basket, but how do they go about picking it?" I'm pretty sure he was just trying to pick me up and put me in his basket, so I was pretty standoffish and said, "Whatever catches your eye I guess." I then realized that he could have easily come up with a cheese remark to that, so I swooped out of the aisle real quick so that he wouldn't have the chance. It kind of reminded me of the time this guy tried to pick me up at the market by asking me what I was making for dinner that night and then asking if he could come over and bring the wine...

Anyway, the older, middle-aged man at Home Goods had a valid point. And to expand on that, how do you find unique art at an affordable price?

Here are some options:

1.Look for picture books at your thrift-store of choice. If you don't have the patience to sift through cook-books and self-help books, make a trip to your local library and do the Dewey (decimal system that is).

I found this book at Rancho Coastal Humane Society's thrift store:

It has hundreds of pictures of every animal you could possibly think of (although it doesn't have a panda bear, strangely enough). If you opted for the thrift-store route, you can literally rip out the spine (carefully) and voila! A plethora of art at your disposal!

If you went to the library, you probably shouldn't tear those books up. Head to Kinkos and do some photocopying instead.

I chose an illustration of some lovely octopi to frame and hang in our bedroom:

2. Refrain from custom framing. Fuck custom framing. It's expensive. If you want a finished look, but only want to spend a tenth of the price it would cost to get a piece custom framed, order custom mattes instead. I found this African butterfly-wing art at Salvation Army for .99 cents. When I brought it to Michael's, I was quoted $99 to get it custom framed. "Do I have any other options? I'm just a kid!" I justified. It ended up costing me $10 instead.

3. Hit the drawing-board. Get out your sharpies, colored pencils, and crayons and go to town! I made this the other night (a parody of the "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster that I frankly, just don't get).

Shortly after I made this, I found out about a website called Keep Calm-o-matic . If I had known about it beforehand, I could have avoided the Sharpie-high. I think this looks much better:

Then I started getting a little creative:

And my personal favorite (which I'm also thinking about getting copyrighted):