Recyling, watercolour and collage. All together.

This was painted on the back side of an old, scrapped painting that was destined for the trash. (Arches cold pressed 140 lb paper.) Outside dimensions are 2.5 inches x 3.5 inches.

The tiny painting was also painted on the same back side piece of paper. It was then cut out and collaged onto the background using matte medium. Dimensions of the tulip painting: 1inch x 1/5 inches. It's a real tiny one!

Also collaged onto here are two pieces of the kleenex that I used to draw water from my brush while painting. (It would have gone into the trash but I loved the colours that filled it when I was finished.) Matte medium was used to glue it down into place after it was shaped and pushed and pressed into place.

The paint tube is the actual paint I used - a beautiful carmine that gives such a delicate pink. I hate throwing away empty paint tubes and have a container full of these empty tubes! Anyways, for this piece, I squeezed and bent and squished it into the shape I wanted and used heaps of matte medium to glue it to the paper.

Also salvaged (i.e. rescued) is a tiny metal "U" that I thought fit into this piece nicely.

After getting all the pieces glued down onto the background, using matte medium, I then brushed on more of the medium to kind of varnish and protect it. It was a bit flimsy so I took another scrap piece of watercolour paper and glued it to the back for more strength and support.

My piece contains several pieces of scrap paper and other tiny little things that would have otherwise gone into landfill. Not much space was saved because of their size, but every little bit helps, right? If you add a lot of these items together, it'd soon be a substantial amount.

I find painting so tiny a real challenge and love to switch from painting large to tiny when I'm feeling "stale".