"Art" for the Poor

What I am about to share could be considered sacrilegious to some of you. But I'm going to risk it, for the sake of the rest of us.

What in the world am I talking about?

Art.

I constantly rip out pages from magazines to use for inspiration. The pages above and below both have unique wall pieces that are real art. Like, from people who are artists.

Unfortunately, our budget for pieces of real art from real artists is nonexistent. But what I did have was two of these oval frames. With nothing in them.

I really liked the look of some of those line art drawings in my inspiration photos. But, alas, I am not an artist, and, well, we've already discussed where my budget is in that department. So, I went to Michael's instead and bought a piece of nice artist paper and some charcoal pencils.

I found some free clip art online. (I just Googled things like "free" "images" "bee," "bike," etc. until I found something I liked.) The bike is for my husband, whose garage is not complete unless it holds at least five bikes at any one time. And the bee is for me. :)

I used graphite tracing paper (also from Michael's) to transfer the line art onto my fancy paper.

Then I went back with my charcoal pencil and traced over the lines.

I mixed my knockoff bike and bee art with my family wall in the kids' playroom.

Thank you free clip art!