As some of you know, I have a second blog, called Fun For The Whole Family. While the content is mostly lighthearted and humorous, there are also plenty of entertaining ideas for entertaining your family and friends, many of them geared towards gamers like myself. I’ve been meaning to cross-post a few of those articles here on my main blog for some time now, and as I only tend to get around to such things in bursts (as you may have noticed), I thought I’d just do a “blog dump” and post a whole bunch at once. The following are from the past few weeks:

So you’re planning a party? Unless you’re throwing one for a large number of people that you don’t really know all that well (in which case it’s probably best to stick with tried-and-true classic games), there are really only two categories of games that are appropriate: lighthearted ones played between people who don’t know each other very well yet and intense strategy games played by people who already know each other pretty well. This is because if you mix together strangers and more intense games, the strangers will get bored (or worse) and leave, while if you play more laid back games with people who already know each other pretty well, their

So what to do with all of those photos of your family and friends? Find out how to get them in frames which will become a work of art in itself. You can make your own photo collages, or turn pictures into works of art using the new digital technology.

Thinking of giving portraits as gifts? See how you can create a portrait collage to give as a gift. You can even create something to present and preserve baby’s first years with the help of computer.

For getting ideas on how to help you with your project, visit our suggestions board on photo collage crafts.

Take a look at some samples and get inspired!

With so many art forms to choose from, there is no shortage of things for you to do this summer. Painting, pottery, sculpture or any of the other artistic pursuits are fun but don’t break the bank. Here are just a few ways to get your creative juices flowing this summer.

Tie-dye T-shirts: This is a great way to spend a few hours with the whole family. You can choose from several different methods for patterns and colors. You’ll have some shirts that look like tie-dye and others that look like tie-dye did an “accident” on them with splatters, drips and smears. Whatever method you choose should give you some shirts that are good enough to wear again and again and some that are too abstract to wear around your friends.

Paint Canvas Tote Bags: This one is a little more time consuming but a lot cheaper than buying new canvas totes at the store. Pick up some used paint cans from businesses or schools that use gallons of paint for painting signs. Wash them out thoroughly and let them dry completely before beginning the project. Cover the outside of the can with a colorful pattern using painter’s tape and stencils or paint it completely if you don’t

The pastime I would like to talk about is western art. You may be wondering what western art is. Well this is a fun hobby where you can draw guns and horses and be as creative as you want with it. You can draw your own favorite western movie and make it into your own original story by adding more characters or making the characters do different things than they were in the movie. Here are some examples of some popular western art.

The first one is from Dances With Wolves where Kevin Costner rides with the Indians to help them fight for their land. 

The next one is from Tombstone, a great movie starring Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer and Sam Elliot among others. In the movie Wyatt Earp and his brothers come to Tombstone to start a new life and end up having shoot outs in the streets all day long.

This next one, is from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, a spaghetti-western starring Clint Eastwood where you see Clint Eastwood as Blondie riding around on his horse in search of buried treasure.

And finally this last one is from True Grit also starring John Wayne but this time as Rooster Cogburn. In this movie he has an enduring relationship with Mattie Ross

I have said nothing about the third dimension. That is because it is without interest and without significance. The third dimension, in art, is purely decorative. And it is not even that; it is a trick, a way of making things look solid without being solid, of giving them the appearance of volume without any real volume. It is, in a word, a magic trick.

There are some very fine lines that can be drawn in art between what is decorative and what isn’t, and I do not want to get into an argument about whether certain great works of art are or are not decoration. There are also some very fine lines between what is interesting and what isn’t interesting in art; I do not want to get into an argument here either. But the difference between what is decorative and what isn’t is clear enough, and we can all see it if we try. A cross made out of intersecting lines that form a box looks decorative; a cross carved out of one piece of wood doesn’t look decorative at all.

Trompe l’oeil painting — the kind that makes you think you’re seeing something you’re not — has been around for thousands of years. Some people like it as much as anything else in art; others hate it

The most popular painting in history is “The Last Supper”, by Leonardo De Vinci. It is a fresco, painted on wet plaster and meant to last for a long time. Since its creation in 1495 it has been heavily restored.

Truly seeing the painting requires us to look at it today, as it is now, not as it was centuries ago when Leonardo painted it. So forget about the Catholic Church, the history of art, and any ideas you may have about Jesus Christ or Judas Iscariot. Instead imagine this:

You are attending a dinner party at a wealthy friend’s house. It is being held in a room with a large mural on one of the walls. The meal is over and everyone is relaxed, drinking wine and talking. You notice that almost everyone has finished their meal but one person—the guest of honor. He seems to be having trouble with his food, poking at something on his plate with his fork while everyone else watches expectantly. After several seconds he brings the fork to his mouth and takes a small bite of whatever it is he’s picked out of his food pile. Then he makes a face and pushes the plate away from him, leaning back in his chair with an unhappy look on his face.

~~Western art is popular broadly defined, but it is also quite specific. It is a combination of various artistic movements and styles that grew in popularity during the early and middle half of the twentieth century.

The beginning of the 20th century saw artists working in styles such as Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, and Symbolism. They rejected traditional approaches to painting (such as the use of perspective) and instead portrayed objects in abstract ways or used them in unconventional contexts.

By the 1930s and 1940s, works by artists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso had inspired other artists to take a new approach to their work. Some began producing abstract works that still referenced recognizable images, while others turned to realism. Realistic artworks attempted to portray familiar scenes or objects with photographic precision, like those by American artist Andrew Wyeth.

Works produced after World War II have been described as “pop” art because they incorporated elements from mass media into their compositions. These include Andy Warhol’s paintings of Campbell’s soup cans and Roy Lichtenstein’s comic-like “whaam” imagery.

Many western artists today are inspired by concepts of minimalism and conceptual art. Minimalist pieces often use simple shapes or