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!!).