Saturday, March 17, 2012

Mail Art

envelope art by Mark Hill
Mark Hill, the illustrator, has a fun project going on. If you send him your address, he will send you a random envelope that he has "doodled" on. These are wonderful. I got mine in the mail this week.... of course I'm going to do one to mail back to him (when I get back from Artfest, right now I've got no time). I've done stuff like this for friends and family, but never for complete strangers. Great way to promote himself. And I love getting stuff in the mail!

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Miniatures

So, this past weekend there was a show opening at the Art Gallery of Lambeth in London, Ontario. I have work on display there most of the time... they have a nice little space, a studio where they hold classes, and they always promote their shows and openings. It's about a two hour drive from where I live. Not too bad if the weather cooperates. This photo is from this show, before the opening. I thought since everything was so small it might end up looking really cluttered. I really shouldn't have worried. It looked great.

March Mini Invitation
The artists that show here are a really nice bunch of people. The work is always really interesting and there is a nice variety of stuff. Even have a little boutique. This show was miniatures. They did this last year too, and I had a few pieces in that show as well. It's interesting working small... things go faster (for me anyway), but I can do twenty and only have 2 or 3 I'm happy with. This year I decided to go totally abstract. They actually used one of my images on the invitation. Another interesting concept... their invitation was the actual size of the image, with the info about the show printed on the back. It looked really nice. So now I've got actual size reproductions that I can hand out to friends. I kinda like that.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Artfest Trades

With 3 weeks to go before Artfest, I've been busy trying to get my trades together. It's not been an easy task... I'm busy at work, and in my free time I'm trying to juggle housework, cooking, shuttling around my kid, redesigning the website for the gallery I participate in and, of course, trying to create some art. I have a half finished painting staring at me as I type this... so many possibilities that I'd love to explore, but the list of things to do keeps growing. I fear this one is going to have to wait until I get back.

Just the same I've been having fun working on these trades. This is the first time I'm participating in something like this (but I hope not the last!). A few people have posted photos of stuff they've collected from previous years... I hope the stuff I'm making won't pale in comparison. I feel honoured to be able to participate. 

I'm making bookmarks for the general trade. I took some small pieces I've been working on, scanned them in and added the Artfest logo. Contact info on the back, just in case someone wants to keep in touch. I laminated them to give them a bit of extra weight, and put on a colourful ribbon to jazz them up a bit.

I read that usually people make something special for their room-mates in the dorm. I'm in a room with 3 other women... I guess spending 4 intense days creating can be a real bonding experience. I'm really looking forward to it. So for these people, I'm making a wire necklace, and a bookmark with a special touch. 

Now, I'd better to get back to work.....