Yard Sale Clip Art

Opposites Attract: Artists' Abstraction and Realism

The two opposites, abstraction and realism , come together in a new exhibition at the Middletown Township Public Library this month.

The show, Expressive Impressions displays 57 works of art by three local artists; Cecilia Swatton, Leonia Mroczkowski and Norma Wokas. The three artists will be on hand at a reception on May 21, from 1 to 3 p.m. in the library's meeting room, where the art is on display through June 3.

Expressive Impressions is an eclectic collection of artwork that will appeal to a wide range of art lovers. The colorful works express everything from inner feelings to outer beauty through the use of pigment and style. Each artist uses her own vision, whether it be through traditional, representational art or non-representational abstraction.

All three women belong to a local artists' group, the Art Society of Monmouth County and were recruited for the show by Swatton, who has lived in Middletown for 18 years.

She creates abstract artwork in mixed media, using bold color and expressive textures. An intuitive artist, she is continually evolving and exploring new mediums. She doesn’t plan ahead because she said, "I want surprise to greet me around every corner as I move through the art making process."

Although Swatton started out as a representational artist, she crossed over into abstraction in 1996 and has never looked back.  "The freedom of non-representational art making delights me," she said. "I love the challenge of creating design and impact with an approach that swings 180 degrees away from the rigid, structured approach that I used in earlier years.  I think this spirit of freedom communicates itself to viewers.  Along with that, I want to give them a tactile experience.  And I want to drench their senses in color." 

Swatton uses a myriad of painting tools to express her inner vision. She explained that acrylic paint is the basic element of her artwork, whether it's applied directly to the canvas or used in preparing novelty papers for collage.

"After acrylic paint, other favored media include acrylic gel, watercolor, colored pencil, crayon, charcoal, ink, salt, isopropyl alcohol and chalks," Swatton said. "Third comes paintbrushes and a packrats hoard of tools for scraping, stamping, printmaking and spraying.  Capping off my tool list, Photoshop and an archival inkjet printer provide imagery derived from original photos. These images can become collage material, while at other times they stand independently as digital art prints.

Using Clip Art to Make Your Garage Sale Items More Eye-Catching ...

Clip arts are now widely-used to liven up banners used in advertising sales. For the uninitiated, clip art is a form of graphics that are actually drawn objects. They look more fun as opposed to looking too professional, thus more loved by kids and people who want to forget about the daily grind.

You don’t have to just let plain and boring price tags or posters drag your advertisement efforts in letting the word out about your upcoming garage sale. The Internet, with the help of a bit of creativity, can make your garage sale posters and tags more vavavoom than ho-hum.

Garage sale and other sales events and stores use clip art. This is because aside from the amusement you can get from viewing them, they are easily manipulated and could you believe it – they can be used for free.

Here is how to use clip art to liven up your garage sale:

1. Categorize the clip art as to how you will use them.

For the price tags, simpler clip art for the dollar sign may be enough.

For the banners or posters, clip art that shows a busy garage sale day will be nice.

If you want to make your displayed items more eye-catching and well-categorized, you can use big boxes labeled with clip art.

2. Look for the clip art through browsing clip art sites.

Just by keying in “free clip art for garage sale” will turn up thousands and even millions of search results. Choose a clip art site and look for those clip art designs by keying in various terms associated with the garage sale, e.g., “price tag”, “garage sale picture”, “kids’ item”, “clothes”, “antique”, “accessories”, “appliances”, “toys”, “home interiors”, “home decors”, etc.

3. Save the clip art designs you chose.

This can be done by simply pointing the cursor to the clip art and do a right click. Click “save picture as” and give the clip art file a name that won’t give you a hard time when you’re searching for that particular clip art. Save those clip arts in a certain folder and name that folder accordingly.

4. Print the clip art.

Choose a size that won’t distort the image of the clip art. Then print them on good paper that won’t smudge.5. Cut the clip art.

Cut the clip art according to how you want them to look if you will paste them to another paper or cardboard.

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