Fine art is a wonderful thing, but often a little to fine for my budget. Obviously an original is out of the question, unless it is the one done by niece, but even the copies and reprints are expensive. So, many times I am left with a blank wall, bemoaning the fact that I can’t afford a beautiful painting to fill the space.

The solution I have found, and which has so far served me well, is calendar art. Calendars go on sale every year and often there are many that display the styling’s of famous artists. I use the calendar and then when I am done with the months that have my favorite pictures I carefully tear them away from the rest of the calendar and put it into a frame. Yes, it’s cheap and maybe even a little silly, but no one ever need know that there are calendar dates on the back of my print.

This same concept can work with cards. If you go to an art museum they will generally have art cards in the gift shop. So, for several dollars you can walk out with a few small replicas of your favorite artist.

The one down side to using calendars and cards to supply your art décor is that they are all fairly small. There is no real way to get around this other than to actually purchase a larger print if it is something you really love, but I have found that clustering smaller prints together often gives a nice effect. Another hitch you may run into is that much of the art found on calendars and cards is not recent. It may be termed ‘modern’ but most often the artist is dead. If you are on the hunt for a current day artist, this inexpensive way of displaying art may not be for you.