what to do with leftover stuff

more sketchbook/art journal catch-up for you today. all of these are a bit random, but the thing they have in common is they're what i did with supplies leftover from other things i had worked on that day, or sometimes the past couple of days. this doesn't necessarily produce an awesome finished pieces, but it's interesting as an exercise. and it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more fun than cleaning up, lol!

ok, so leftover gesso: i was at the end of the container, actually, which had got a bit gloppy and it was hard to reach at the very bottom. so i poured the remains onto a paper plate and then just swiped it onto random book pages --with a brush, with an old gift card, with my fingers-- in whatever designs seemed interesting. i have a bunch of these now, that i can grab whenever i need a base. this one wound up underneath my drawing of "autumn leaves" for 365 doodles with johanna fritz:

leftover modelling paste, sewing pattern and aloha lady. oh and some book paper, too: these were all from different days; i tend to let vintage paper offcuts sit in a pile near my work table, so i can grab them when i have extra paint, modelling paste, embossing paste, colorburst... whatever... it seems a shame to waste it, so i'll use whatever stencil or tool is already dirty and just swipe on the leftovers. sometimes the results sit for ages, sometimes they get tossed out, sometimes there's another leftover item the next night that seems like it'd work well. this page got a little bit of all those techniques, lol: 

leftover torn paper, acrylic paint, tinted modelling paste and sequins: another multi-night scenario-- i used the paper scraps to make a background. i put some waaaaaaay-too-bright blue quatrefoils on another night. i put the white hexies on another night. in between there were various stencils with distress inks and some schoolbus yellow acrylic paint that seared my retinas. again, i stress that these pieces are more about process and seeing what will happen after the next layer and the next... but having said that, they sometimes really grow on me!

this one's kind of a hybrid leftover, it's a rejected background and an orphaned mandala: the background was my first attempt at a home for the "aloha" collage i posted a few days ago. it was way too dark, and the flourishes didn't show up much, and the hearts were, ummmmm... UGH... etc, etc. meanwhile the completely unrelated mandala was painted freehand on a scrap of watercolor paper with leftover colorburst watercolors one night. and i liked it but... whaddaya do with HALF a mandala?? so both of these just sat for a while, until i saw this awesome post of francisa nunes' and i thought, "AHA!" so i combined them. and i really like them together much more than either one on its own:

so what do *YOU* do with leftovers? save 'em? toss 'em? keep the ones that seem promising until you run out of space? i'm always interested (you could say NOSY lol!) in other peoples' art-making habits, so i'd love to hear what you do! ♥