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Bored Panda

Ilona Baliūnaitė

78 People Who Personalized Thrifted Paintings By Adding In Something Funny Or Unexpected (New Pics)

Mary Poppins Internet Psychology Today

If you’re anything like us, then you’re probably passionate about art, painting, and other creative hobbies. The awesome thing about the internet is that you get to see just how many amazing creators are out there in the world.

The ‘Repaintings’ online community is a great niche for artists everywhere who enjoy taking an already finished painting and then updating it by repainting it to jazz it up with unusual edits. We wanted to celebrate some of these great artists, so we’re featuring some of their finest (re)works. Scroll down to check them out below.

#1 I've Started To Collect And Paint Lettering On Old Decorative Plates

#2 Sharing My Latest Roller Coaster Creation. Picked Up This At A Salvation Army For $3.99

#3 Cat Bombing, My Latest Thing. Didn't Remember To Take A Before Picture But Think It's Pretty Obvious What I Added

Full disclosure, we absolutely love art, and we dabble in it in our spare time. It’s true that, among other hobbies, we like to take out our easel, brushes, and paint from time to time and have a go at painting on a canvas.

And though we might not be stellar or even particularly good, it’s a relaxing hobby and gives us a creative outlet. Even though we fail more often than not, we understand that we’re slowly improving. Painting is like any other skill. Namely, you’ll get better at it with practice.

#4 Stripped Another Old World Christmas Ornament And Repainted It To Look Like My Brother’s Cat

#5 Proud Of This One!

#6 For All The Lotr Fans Out There

However, just like with any other skill, making mistakes, messing up, and failing isn’t all that pleasant to deal with. And yet, it’s inevitable that on your way to learning something new, you’ll fail over and over (and over) again. So, what really helps is reframing how you see your mistakes.

Instead of viewing your less-than-perfect results as a personal failure, try to perceive them as opportunities for growth and personal development. In other words, you don’t win or lose, you either win or you learn.

#7 Made A Classic Repainting, The Rubber Ducky

Rubber duck painted onto a wintery landscape

#8 My Latest Painting On Thrifted Fabric With Thrifted Pieces Sewn-In

#9 What Do You Think To My First Attempt? Any Suggestions Appreciated

As Psychology Today explains, a growth mindset is the belief that an individual’s capacities and talents can be improved over time. It’s the idea that, over time, your efforts allow you to improve.

On the flip side, having a fixed mindset suggests that you believe a person’s capacity to learn and improve can’t be meaningfully developed.

#10 Yogi And Boo

#11 My Oil Paintings On Thrifted Fabric

#12 "Why Is The Rum Always Gone" Acrylic On Thrifted Painting

According to Psychology Today, individuals with a fixed mindset think they’re not good at anything, believe they always fail, and think that others always do better.

“They are convinced that they can’t learn anything new, and that it’s far too late for them to try because they will fail anyway. They feel they struggle too much in their tasks, and they feel inferior by the seemingly easy success of the people around them.”

#13 Our Lady Of Coffee

#14 Mary Poppins

#15 Amsterdam

However, with consistent effort, smart work, and focus, and learning from your mistakes, you can set out to achieve pretty much anything that you envision. Sure, luck plays an important role in your art career taking off, too, but you can certainly improve your painting skills and enjoy success.

Persistence is what eventually leads to success in all areas of life.

#16 Pizzagate (Done By My Friend, Hanging In My Kitchen)

#17 All Work And No Play - I Had A Lot Of Fun Painting This One!

#18 Fam That Slays Together, Stays Together

I repaint religious statues to represent the LGBTQ art of drag, and raise awareness to the ongoing oppression and legislative assault of our community at the hands of religious bigotry. This is not anti-Christian… I have many followers who also identify as Christian and support this movement

The ‘Repaintings’ online community has been around for a while now. It was first created over a decade ago, back in mid-February of 2014.

Currently, the subreddit gets around 1.6k visitors every week, as well as around 11 weekly contributions. That’s a lot of people either repainting paintings or sharing their love of them.

#19 There Goes The Chili!

#20 Added Some Spook To This Decorative Plate

#21 I Bring You Love

According to the moderator team running the subreddit, the community is all about “changing the context or content of an existing artwork.”

They suggest that you go “find a painting at a garage sale, thrift store, or in the trash and repaint it. Add some monsters! Lasers? Before and After pics are encouraged.”

#22 I Repainted A Thrift Store Last Supper Painting With My Favourite Video Game Characters

#23 Lost In The World

#24 Thrift Painting I'm Working On Adding Characters To

With that in mind, it’s important to stress that ‘Repaintings’ is a subreddit dedicated solely to, well, repainting existing paintings. And so, original works of art, no matter how brilliant and amazing, shouldn’t be posted here. There are plenty of other great art-focused communities where you can share your original art.

#25 He's My Emotional Support Critter

#26 My First Repainting Ever, Starting My Second!

#27 Repainted This Vintage Garden Gnome I Found Tucked Away In A Thrift Shop

What’s more, the online community is all about the physical act of painting. That means that there’s no room for sharing digital works here, even if you have awesome skills in that area. You can only share photos of traditionally repainted works on ‘Repaintings,’ where you edited them with real, physical paint.

Furthermore, you aren’t allowed to monetize your (re)paintings on the subreddit. Keep things fun and friendly.

#28 First Time! Added Winnie The Pooh To This Cheap Thrift Shop Painting!

#29 Iron Giant, Acrylic On Thrifted Painting

#30 Such A Sweet Little Lady

When you’re done looking through these awesome (re)works of art and upvoting your favorite ones, we’d like to hear your thoughts in the comments at the bottom of this list.

What’s your relationship with painting and art in general, Pandas? What creative hobbies do you have? Have you ever tried updating a painting that you’ve found somewhere? Tell us all about it, we can’t wait to hear what you have to say. And as always, the credits for each artist are underneath each image.

#31 Let's All Go To The Lobby

#32 The Ultimate Rick Roll

#33 "So Thirsty" Original Completed Circa 2015

#34 Took The Advice In The Comments And Added The Dog!

#35 Courage In Eggplant Suit

#36 "Dear God, Give Us A Sign!"

#37 Stay Puft - Acrylic On Thrift Art

#38 Painted Elaine Into A Thrifted Print

#39 Everyone Said He Was Too Sheltered, Everyone Said He’d Never Leave Home. Greg Decided To Show Em All. He Flew Solo To Japan For Vacation, And Now Residency. No Egrets

#40 Vincent Van Crocs

I always feel a little cheeky altering a Van Gogh, but honestly Vince, what's going on with his face in the original? Am I missing something?

#41 Thrift Store Repaint

Found this old painting at the thrift store and decided to do a repaint as my White Elephant gift for my work Christmas party. I dont paint much but I definitely want to do more of these! Let me know what you think.