The Last of the Art Swap Pages

I finally finished the last of the six art swap pages -- just in the nick of time!

 Do you see the little birdie hiding there?

The little lady bug is tissue paper on vellum-like tracing paper. The "hello" is a scrap of fabric.

I can't wait to receive the pages that will be sent to me through this exchange! 

More Art Swap Pages

I have completed two more pages for the Art is . . . You Swap. This little birdie is made from a couple of swatches of upholstery fabric. The cool stitching around the border is a bit obscured by the layers of pastel I added, but it's more visible in real life. And you can't see it, but behind the letter stickers there's a piece of paper that has the title of a vintage book about nests and birds :)

The colours aren't as true in the picture below, but you can see the effect of the ribbon better:

The other page I created was inspired by Christy Tomlinson's She Art girls. I haven't taken any of Christy's classes, but I've watched a few of her online videos and I like her whimsical girls.

It's hard to tell, but my girl is wearing a bun ;) And that flower in the middle is supposed to be the sun! :)

I'm lacking inspiration for my last two pages, though . . .

Work in Progress - Art Swap

I recently decided that I'd like to participate in the Art Is . . . You  Art Swap.  The theme is Weird Wild Wonderful. I have been itching to get started, and yesterday afternoon I found the body power to begin, as long as I remained sitting. 


Oh, what fun I had! Outside of a run-in with the sewing machine (I wailed in frustration, unaware that in my efforts,  I cut my hand on the balance wheel and got a blister  -- not such a good thing when my immune system is so compromised. Turns out it wasn't just my chemo-compromised muscles -- DH had to get a wrench to loosen it!), I spent several blissful hours playing and creating. 


I decided I want to have a theme for each page with just a word or two to indicate that theme. The first was "Joy" -- epitomized by my happy little masking tape girl. (I kinda wish it was more obvious what she's made of.)  The perfectionist in me says she's too juvenile. But I am getting better and better at silencing the inner critic and embracing whatever shows up on my pages!

I might replace that little bird with one that stands out more, but other than that I think I'll call it done for now.

On my second page, I decided to try a technique I've seen a few places online -- painting over a magazine face. (Here is a cool example. I put a light coat of gesso on the image, so I had no trouble with the paint adhering -- though I was using acrylics and not water colours. ) 

I like my little lovely and will definitely be trying this technique again. 

Have you ever participated in an art swap? I encourage you to try it. You're "better" at art than you think! (I wrote about my first swap here. Looking back now I can see how I've "grown" as an artist -- even in less than a year! That's cool:)

Art Journal Pages - My First Swap

First of all, if you are one of the 10 participants in the christian paper artists yahoo group's art journal page swap -- you may want to skip this post so that you can be surprised by what arrives in your mailbox :) 


For the rest of you, I thought I would share the pages that I made for my very first art swap! The idea was to create 10 art journal pages and send them to the host, who will assemble and bind together one from each participant before mailing them back. Of course, the naysayer in me had a hard time even signing up for the swap, but I'm glad I did. It took MUCH longer than I anticipated to make my pages, but I think that's because I tend to think too much about it all -- AND because I decided to decorate the backs of all my pages, which really meant I was making 20 journal pages instead of 10. Anyway, here are the results -- largely influenced by my spiritual journey this summer. Each front is followed by its back side:

I recycled some work that I've done in the past, which made the process a bit faster. But I still felt like I was rushing through at the end to meet the deadline. Oh, how good it felt to be making art, though! I'm thinking about participating in a Christmas ornament swap -- it's just the time factor that worries me. I still feel guilty taking time to be creative. 


Anyway -- I'm really excited to see what appears in my mailbox in a few weeks! Art swaps are such a cool idea -- committing to making art AND getting real mail from other artists all over the world! How sweet is that???


Have you ever participated in an art swap -- or any other kind of creativity exchange? What were your experiences?