Have you ever drawn on a second-hand print? One of my favorite recent developments in upcycling thrift store finds is painting monsters into old landscapes. Here are two of my favorites:

by Chris McMahon (source)

by Thyrza Segal (source)

I recently found a framed landscape at Goodwill for $5 and decided to try it for myself! Here’s the painting before:

And here it is after the cryptids arrived in the village:

If you’re curious, the creatures are (clockwise from the left): a hodag, a Jersey devil, a large yeti, and a small Loch Ness monster.

I used Sharpie paint markers for this project. I hadn’t used them together like this before and I’m extremely happy with how it turned out! If I waited for the previous application of paint to dry I got a clean line for the next layer of paint, which is wonderful to know when you’re working in a space so small. If you try this on your own thrift store painting, I absolutely recommend Sharpie paint markers (and Sharpie didn’t even pay me to say that, I just like them that much!). It’s also a good idea to sketch out what you’re going to draw beforehand so you can get an idea of how big the monsters in the painting will be and where they should go.