A lot of the pictures that I put in there are of cockatiels, budgies, and lovebirds. Might try doing some brushstroke filters on those pictures to make them more like paintings. Do you google pictures for your custom paintings, and do you brushstroke them for Sims 2?

I stick stuff from my pictures folder in there. Which pretty much equals lolcats and anime.

Cute! I've downloaded some more cockatiel photos today, and I need to get around doing some filter work on the bigger ones.

A lighthouse picture I took on vacation, some vintage illustrations and some video game art (easel paintings).

Custom paintings, using Sim PE ... birds (lots of birds), more vintage illustrations (I'm really into those), anime/manga art, flowers, Art Deco paintings, interesting patterns. Oh, and one llama picture I was going to use for my user-made dorm that I was going to submit for the recent theme, but life kind of interfered in there. I might submit the dorm as is by the end of the year, though. Those are the pictures I made.

I have lots and lots of stuff from other creators ... way too long to list here.

Sometimes I see fantastic art sets on tumblr or deviant art from one artist so I resize them and put them into my custom paintings so my artistic sims have a 'syle' and their paintings match.

So you're into birds too? Awesome!

I downloaded a huge set. It says I have 794 so way too many to picture here! I need to weed out what I don't want. I like paintings/drawings, not realistic pictures.

Most masterpieces from renowned artists like Degas, Monet and others. My pixels like the classics.

I have all of Vincent Van Gogh and Norman Rockwell's paintings. I added a lot of signs so my artist sims sells signs to the Business Owners. I also found out that sims can paint transparent. The sign can be placed on windows but from the back you can see the back of the painting.

Jack Vettriano portraits, medieval scenes, photos of stained glass windows and biblical scenes, portraits of favorite authors...some nature shots

Last night, I used some brush stroke effects on those birb pictures I downloaded. Dunno if I can upload them because the originals of some of them have watermarks or signatures. Hope it's ok to use professional photos for personal use in a game.

One advantage to vintage illustrations (at least 100 years or so) is that I don't have to worry about royalties. I use a lot of personal pictures and ones I take from bird cams as well. (Yup. I like birds! Frogs and toads, too.) The llama and a frog picture came from a royalty-free site. I think one such site I use is Pexels.

Some of my pictures, though, might still be iffy, despite my efforts. I make it a point to never use those in any picture I post publicly.

Last i checked, a bunch of anime pictures lol

And some cow pics for my Kline cult

Things I've found that I've liked and not had another use for. I go for things that look painted rather than photographs. Examples attached.

anything and everything. I have a pinterest board solely for pics that I like/catch my eye so when I have a sim with a high interest in something I can have them paint their own bedroom art so it's customized to thier personality.

only added like one thing but i'll add more..soon..i mean i'm an extreme procrastinator

currently just shipped version pictures are in my Paintings folder. might copy some pictures from "My Pictures" to that folder.

I love art and this particular folder is like my music folder, ever evolving and changing. I currently have African-American, Caribbean, Guatamala, and Hatian Folk Art oil paintings, water colors, Sim photos used for portraits, and other pieces by some of my favorite artist.

Portraits of myself, Papyrus, and an unflatteringly derpy headshot of McCree.

Random pics from our house renovation, including several of our late cat Bruce exploring the changes; random pics that my husband has downloaded for other purposes and I've borrowed (see attached); my book covers; and pics from my game snapshots that it makes sense for sims to be painting.

I used to have my own paintings there when I was trying out a self sim many years ago...now I just have memes.

I somehow didn't know about this folder. So I only have random dog pictures which I assume are from the developers?

yep they are

noticed mine after installing my 3 most recent expansions; Pets, Seasons, Apartment Life. though game loaded after installing Apartment Life; like I told in the Help section, Pets and Seasons would not load when either are most recent.
from my understanding, custom paintings was introduced with Pets.

I'm not quite sure JDacapo meant by paintings .... easel or custom paintings that you buy?

I have a whole bunch of default easel replacements from about three or four creators. Unfortunately, I don't like most of the Maxis ones. I have several custom easel paintings, and a WHOLE lot of custom paintings you buy from the catalog, including at least one to two dozen of mine.

Easiest tutorial for custom easel paintings. There are some different sizes suggested there ... see what works for you.

http://modthesims.info/t/333221

Easiest tutorial for making pictures for your catalog, using Maxis templates:

http://modthesims.info/t/95015 Note ... if you don't want the picture flipped, make sure that "flip picture" box isn't checked.

These are basic. There are a couple of more artful tutorials.