Artists often celebrate the holidays in unexpected ways. I celebrated the Fourth of July by creating encaustic firework paintings with my fellow artists, Andy Dzikiewicz, Diana Dzikiewicz (her painting is on the right ) and Kate Dzikiewicz (her painting is on the left .) One creates these paintings by first painting on a prepared board with encaustic, and next placing the artwork in the sand. Place snake or sparklers on top of the painting, light with a torch, and stand back!
The firework melt the paint in interesting ways, and will leave either black soot behind, or ,in the case of colored smokebombs, leave random bits of red, yellow or blue color on the painting.
Other ideas? One might also scratch into the paint with sea shells (as done in the painting on the right.)