Zentangles - An Addiction!

Yes, I am officially addicted - zentangles are just so much fun!  This is a selection of recent ATCs I have made in the zentangle style.  So far I haven't tried shading them - just black and white doodles, some with borders, some without.  

My favourite pens at the moment are Faber Castell Drafting & Sketching Pens (Ecco-Pigment) - they are technical drawing pens and come in a pack of four with sizes ranging from 0.1 to 0.7.  Absolutely wonderful!

What I think I like most is that you can just work on these ATCs in very small bursts of time - there is no excuse when you only have five minutes plus they are so transportable!  All of these ones are on Strathmore Bristol Smooth ATCs.   

Let me know if you love zentangling - perhaps we could trade???

A Mixed Media Exchange

My houses for the swap

I recently hosted a mixed-media "hanging houses" exchange on the Aus_ArtSisters group following the wonderful results from earlier heart and bird exchanges.  We had eleven participants in total and we all ended up with one of each of the other participants houses, all of which were quite different in style, material and embellishment!  My dining table looked rather glorious while I was sorting all of the 120+ houses that had arrived here.  

The photo at the top is a group shot of the fronts of the houses I made.  I wanted to do "bright and cheerful" and decided to decorate them all differently (reduces the boredom factor!) and then I personalised the backs with the recipients name etc.  The hearts on the front are blanket stitched felt for a bit of textural contrast.  

And here are my houses from the other ten participants (not all have blogs unfortunately) - 

aren't they all wonderful? 

Sue Smith's "tea" house

Margaret Cullen-Erickson's house

Lucy Leatham's "bird" house

Judy Timmins house

Bevlea Ross' house

Celeste Santin's house

Jacky Williams' house

Vanessa Henry's house

Kasha Rolley's house

Gaye Todd's house

And now of course I must find somewhere lovely to hang them all! 

Something Different...

Well so much for my intention to do some catch-up posts a fortnight ago!  Time really seems to be flying by this year - I really can't believe we are only a little over three months away from Christmas.

This painting is something completely different for me.  I painted it on my weekend in Denmark recently with my wonderful friends Sue Smith and Jhodi Bennett.  We were sharing some inspiration and different techniques and Jhodi got us to paint on big wood panels using what I call a grunge-y technique - lots of bright colours, scribbles and handwriting covered with white paint scraped over the top, and stencilling and splashing and dripping and sponging and sanding back.  Although I love "loose" and "messy" techniques in other people's artwork I am not naturally comfortable actually doing it myself, so this really was a stretch for me.  

I loved it though and I think it was because I saw it as "play" - I had no expectations and no feelings that it would matter if I didn't like the result.  It was a damp weekend in the bush weather-wise so this has had ants crawling on it and rain drops land on it when I didn't get back outside quick enough when the weather changed!  I can't wait to do more - probably smaller pieces though as it will be a bit easier for me to work on inside - the wood is such a lovely firm surface and I love the idea of being able to hammer in nails and add texture without worrying about the impact on a canvas.

Next post I'll share the results of the little hanging houses swap that I really hosted - they are so cute!

Beautiful Art Received!

This beautiful piece of artwork is from Vanessa ("Ness") Henry - she made it for me in a one-on-one exchange (my little quilt for her was the subject of my last post).  I just love it - it sparkles and has lots of lovely details and arty touches (very Ness!).  I have it displayed in my bedroom as it looks perfect there and I can look at it every day that I am home!

I can't believe it has been so long since I blogged but life has been hectic - we are planning a trip to France (in 2012) and as a result I seem to spend every spare moment searching for apartments, reading about France or googling images!  Very addictive, I must say.  I had a lovely "long" weekend away in Denmark a week ago with two beautiful friends and although I have had a week or so of leave the time has just flown!  I've also been working on and off over the last several weeks on some small "hanging houses" for a swap with the Australian Art Sisters group so I haven't had anything much arty that I could blog about.  I am intending, though, to do a couple of catch-up posts this week (as soon as I edit some photos!!).

Mixed Media Fun

I joined in a one-on-one art exchange this month in the Aust Art Sisters Group and made Ness (who doesn't have a blog) this little hanging "quilt".

I guess it is a quilt as it has a front made of fabric pieces (and an image printed on acetate with a paper doily and an old book page trapped behind it), a layer of batting and a fabric batting.  It was a lot of fun to make and I added some beading, laces, buttons, ribbon and a metal embellishment that I painted and personalised.  I love recycling paper bag handles as hangers so that is what I did here with a white bag.

And this is a card (also made to hang) that I made for Alice for her June birthday.  It uses handmade paper, and lace, tape, buttons and rub-ons with machine stitching.  I really love making these collage style mixed media cards - I have a whole pile in varying states of completion.

I was in Albany again for work a week ago and here are some pictures of bird activity during my dawn walk (I actually prefer walking after work but it was too dark by the time we finished for the day so I substituted a very fresh and invigorating morning walk!).

Lots of seagulls flying from the left

They all landed a little further down on the jetty.

Virtually single file - and they were making a racket!

I've seen lines of birds on a wire before...

Amazing!

My New Love and Some Little Creations

I just have to share my new love - Japanese masking (tissue) tape....so pretty, so versatile...

And a few things I have made lately:

A little rustic hanging house for my sister Kathryn (instead of a birthday card) - made from fat quarters of beautiful soft patterned fleecy fabric that I bought in Melbourne at least three years ago. It is a little "bee" hanging from the heart - my name (Deborah) means "bee" in Hebrew and Kathryn and I have an ongoing "bee" theme happening.

A card for my Mum's birthday (we have several family birthdays in June!) - note the use of Japanese tape (I used it inside as well to cover the machine stitching).

And a fabric ATC for my long term trading partner Anne Lugherini over in beautiful France (where I hope to spend some time next year).  The fabric is some that I recently painted and stamped and I have scanned the ATC atop more of the same fabric.

We've had a lovely weekend here with some rainy periods - beautiful weather for walking - we are so desperate for rain with the dams so low.  And in case anyone noticed that I wrongly labelled some photos in a recent blog post, I suddenly realised what I had done and I have now corrected them!  I have been travelling a bit in the south west with work and obviously wasn't thinking very clearly when I did that post.

My Birds Arrived!

And they look gorgeous.  This is a photo of them all hanging in front of my blind in my little "bliss box" (craft room).  And here is another partial shot with the blinds open. They look gorgeous with the hearts from the last exchange.

Close-ups of each bird:

Susie's Bird

Margaret's Bird

Marlene's Bird

Ness' Bird

Lucy's Bird

Gaye's Bird

Kasha's Bird

Celeste's Bird

And mine.

We are doing houses next!

Another Mixed Bag!

Sunset Bunbury, Western Australia

Painted Fabric Postcard for Surface Design Exchange

This is one of the fabric postcards that I have made for a Painted Fabric Postcard Exchange through the Surface Design Yahoo Group.  It is actually a lot more vibrant and sparkly than it looks in the scan!  I had a lot of fun painting and stencilling and stamping a range of fabrics, some of which are included in the progress photo below (which is more accurate colour-wise).  Naturally I did far more than I needed for this particular exchange - I think I like doing backgrounds more than anything else actually!

 

I have five 4 postcards that are available for trade if anyone is interested - 

they look like these ones:  

I am happy to trade postcards or ATCs for them - just send me an email or comment here.

Next in the bag to share is this beautiful ATC that the very talented Moya Scaddon has made for me as part of an ATC exchange - my theme is vintage and I love Moya's interpretation.

ATC by Moya Scaddon

And now for a few more shots from a recent work trip to Bunbury - firstly the soft dawn light as seen facing away from the sunrise from my hotel room - I just love the colours.

Then some sunset shots (and I know there is glare and red spots but it was beautiful and my camera is basic!):

And finally the Bunbury lighthouse for anyone who loves lighthouses! (Taken from the walking path below the lighthouse because of course my main purpose was to get some exercise, not to take photos!)

A Mixed Bag - Paintings, Collage and Photos of Perth!

This blog post can only be described as a mixed bag!

Finished (I think!)

Early progress photo

Later progress...

With letter stencilling added

Nearly finished...only highlights to go

First off - a painting I recently completed (I've started about 20 since the painting weekend with Flora Bowley).  It is a small scale painting using learnings and inspiration from Flora's teachings (which are for large scale paintings).  I've included a few progress photos  (underneath the finished painting) to show how it developed.  The last layers involved considerable use of stencils, masks and Tattered Angels Spray products!

Jen's Collage

I recently purchased this lovely collage from Jen (over in the east) and it arrived in the mail on Friday.  

I love the wrapping and the gorgeous laminated bookmarks Jen sent with it (almost as much as I love the collage)! I always have several books "on the go" so bookmarks are always appreciated around here.

And here are some of the many photos I took earlier in the week from the roof of Perth's Central Park building.

 

This is the new BHP building and it is going to be at least as tall as Central Park.  I look out onto this building (from a lot lower down) and it is just fascinating watching a huge building get built!)  You can see the shadow silhouette of our building in this photo.

PS I was going to add captions to them all but just getting all the photos loaded has taken ages! Email me if you have any questions (Perth really is a pretty city).