Using Disposable Supplies for Art

Stop writing or typing. There is a lot of pressure to create something lasting, meaningful and worth reading when you sit in front of a keyboard. Like an artist faced with paint and brushes and the blank canvas then trying to be brilliant on call, it doesn’t always work on command.

On Divine Caroline, Zografis, has written Muses Just Want to Have Fun. It’s an article about using crayons, pencils, lunch bags, match boxes, whatever you have around that is disposable or might already have been thrown out (recycled) to create art, without the pressure of using the “good” paper which gives the pressure of not wasting it with something less than great.

The projects don’t have to be amateurish, but they should be ultimately disposable … it is the possibility to throw it away without guilt that frees your creative risk-taking self. It’s a lot easier to toss the flubs if it is only your time, and not expensive materials that you are tossing out.

I’m not suggesting using materials so inferior that they frustrate the creative process, but I am in favor of simplicity. Get out the crayons, the colored pencil, or some decent tempera paints. Use the backs of gift boxes, the reverse side of watercolors or drawings that didn’t succeed, butcher paper, grocery bags, scraps of matte board. I’ve had a lot of fun with shopping bags from expensive boutiques, which are often made out of really NICE paper and usually only have a small, discreet, classy logo on them—cut them up and play! Go crazy, experiment—you were going to throw it out anyway.

Tagged as: creative, creative writing, reading, web publishing, web writing, writing