Art is a social medium, so throw an art party! Gather together a number of inexpensive canvases, washable paints and aprons and invite your friends over for an afternoon of artsy fun. Offer buffet refreshments and encourage your guests (and yourself) to find your inner Jackson Pollack by splattering colors over the canvas. Even if your creations don't turn out to be museum-worthy, you'll have a lot of fun. If you're serving your own refreshments, offer guests art-themed sugar cookies decorated with splashes of food coloring.
Astound your friends and neighbors with your artistic talent by decorating your driveway or sidewalk! If you're good with perspective, blow their minds with 3-D sidewalk chalk drawings that seem to show the pavement melting away, flooding out, or opening up onto a mummy's tomb or superhero's lair.
When drawing 3-D sidewalk art, many artists use computerized art programs, and their "perspective" tools, to calculate just the right angle for viewing the piece. Then they impose a grid onto their artwork, and simply replicate it, square by square, onto a corresponding grid drawn onto the pavement. It's wise to work from the center outward, or from side to side, to avoid smudging the image. Be sure to take pictures of your masterpiece too, so when it rains, your achievement isn't gone forever.
If you're looking for a rainy-day project, curl up with your laptop and a hot espresso and check out The Art Project by Google. The website allows you to view more than 1,000 masterpieces at museums around the world and assemble your own private "art collection," which you can then share with friends.
If you aren't in a highbrow, serious kind of mood and just want to give your portrait a fun twist, upload your mug shot to an online photo site that allows you to cartoonize your (or anyone else's) portrait. There are multiple websites available that can feature you on a fictional magazine cover, position you against strange backdrops or make you glow with psychedelic color.
Many basic software packages come with paint programs included, most of which allow you to upload photos and alter them. You can create the look of an old-time photo by changing a color photo to black and white or even sepia tones. You can frame your photo, add clip art or text boxes to it, or create negative images with the click of a button. Some have distortion tools for a funhouse effect, or scissor tools that allow you to cut out one part of a photo and paste it onto something else.