I’m so excited to share today’s recycled art project that I’m practically busting to get this post written!

As you may know, yesterday we took a rather hideous painting that I found in a second-hand shop, and turned it into a stunning hand-painted, hooligan original.  You can read all about it here in my recycled painting post.

Well, if you were impressed with yesterday’s recycled art project, hold on to your hat because what we made today may just be the coolest thing we’ve ever created!

 The canvas for our a canvas for our recycled art:

This was a poster that we’d had mounted on a piece of pressboard, and it had hung in my son’s bedroom for years.  His tastes have changed, and he’d taken it down, and I’d been meaning to donate it to Value Village when it occurred to me that the hooligans could create a painting of their own on it.

It took me a couple of months to think of something cool to do with it, but I’m tellin’ you, it was worth the wait!  The smooth surface of the pressboard was perfect for this!

How we made our recycled art:

A few days ago, I rolled a coat of primer over the picture.  I’m not sure if that step was even necessary, but I figured it couldn’t hurt.

Today I mixed up some powdered black tempera paint, and the hooligans rolled it over the entire surface of the picture.

It only took a few minutes to dry because I gave it a blast with the hair dryer.  (an old hair dryer in the craft room is handy for speeding up the drying process sometimes)

OH!  If you’re wondering about the adorable aprons that the hooligans wear when we’re gettin’ messy, I make them from the legs of worn out jeans.  You can get the tutorial for my  repurposed denim aprons here!

Next, I swirled six circles of acrylic craft paint onto the picture: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.  I actually used several shades of each paint because we we’d be using a smooshing technique which is a great way for kids to experiment with colour mixing.  I topped off each coloured circle with a swirl of white acrylic craft paint.

Then I lightly covered the whole thing with 3 overlapping pieces of cling-wrap, and handed it back over to the hooligans, and they smooshed the whole thing.  When we’ve done smooshing in the past (you can see our Fall Collages here) we’ve really rubbed and smeared the cling wrap around, but today I had the hooligans press down and pat the cling wrap, so the circles wouldn’t get too mixed up with each other. And now for the big reveal…

Is this not GORGEOUS?

Another collaborative work of art for playroom!

I wouldn’t hesitate to hang this on our main floor if it wasn’t already spoken for in the playroom.  The only thing I would change if I were making it for our family’s living space is is that I would use acrylic paint for the black base instead of the black tempera paint that we used today.  An acrylic base would be more durable, and I’d be able to apply a coat of matte varnish over it to seal it and give it a bit of a sheen.

As far as playroom art goes though, I think this piece rocks!