You could:
- Incorporate found objects into a painting - typewriter keys or house keys, beads, clock or watch parts, jewellery, wood, animal or insect figurines, Lego, melted wax or metal, collage elements, modern pieces into a historic scene, historic elements into a modern one, text, fabrics, threads, yarn, twine, buttons, glass gems, pebbles, plastic bags, bottle caps.
- Add collage elements from print sources like magazines, books, photographs, postcards, flyers, menus, tickets.
- Add lighting with LED bulbs, glow-in-the-dark paints, or fibre optics to illuminate the piece.
- Add moving parts to a static piece by incorporating mechanical elements like gears, pulleys, springs, propellors and other things that spin, items attached by fasteners so they can move, switches, levers.
- A pop culture references into incongruous spaces.
- Add personal elements that hold meaning to you, such as favourite quotations, jewellery, or family heirlooms.
Or:
- Attach a vintage map to an old landscape painting.
- Add lace to a still-life.
- Add hand-stitched shape outlining, patterns, text, or other forms using embroidery floss, yarn, metal threads, or thread.
- Use markers, inks, graffiti pens to add directly to the piece by hand.
- Use a decoupage method to add layers of a section on top of each other to add raised elements.