I use every bit of everything I have and can find. In this painting you see bits of other older paintings collaged in. I paint on the backs of older paintings, and over paintings, even other people's paintings I pick up at garage sales or Restores. That is also where I
get a lot of my paints. I pick up frames at Value Village, the Restore and at garage sales and make them new again. It's also fun to recycle old paper by painting or printing on it, or incorporating it as collage.
Old plywood and light shelving wood make a great back for a painting so that the whole effect is more like a craft than a framed piece of art . You can see this barn painting, which was painted on unstretched canvas cloth, has been glued to a board, which was then mounted on top of another board and varnished to make an authentic feeling presentation. The painting can easily be popped off the board if a buyer prefers to frame it, in which case I reuse the mounting board.
Looking for treasure and making old things new again is all part of the fun of making meaningful art. It's lovely nod to the continuity of our history.
Also, I do not use toxic solvents in my work at all. And brushes, used with 'water soluble' paints, are cleaned in a jar with a filter so no plastic or pigment chemicals get into the water system. Residue is put in the garbage.