The Do-Your-Own-Thing Collaboration

My art group, Portland Art Collective, is doing a really fun project this year we call the "Do-Your-Own-Thing Collaboration."  About 15 of us are participating.  Each month the 2 people who are up for that month give us all a packet of materials and instructions on what they want us to do.  Sometimes the instructions are very specific, other times it's more wide open to our interpretation.  We've done everything from making quilt blocks, to dressing paper dolls, to doing abstract calligraphy.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to photograph the earlier projects, but here are a few of the recent ones.

Lenall asked us to make a piece 5"x 7" or smaller that contained a heart or hearts and the color red.  I am obsessed with this stitch I saw on Pinterest.  It probably has a name, but I don't know what it is,  just a tight blending of colors into one another.  The piece needed a little batting to take away the poufs, so I ended up making it into a tiny quilted piece.

I used that same stitch when I made Carol's piece.  Carol gave each of us a pennant shaped canvas with grommets in the top.  We each got a letter to include in any way we wanted on the pennant.  Some stitched, some painted, some collaged.   She requested some aqua and teal to tie them together.  She is making a large garland out of them that says, "Celebrate Happy" to hang for special occasions.

 Suzanne gave us each a 6X6" board with the instruction to do a circle within the square using any media we wanted.  I collaged some parts of my rejected paintings on it.  She left the instructions wide open to use any colors.

 This isn't part of our project but is my first attempt at trying that stitch.  It's so fun to use around negative space.

We are all really enjoying this project.  Each month feels like Christmas when we get our new packet of materials.  And it's so much fun to see each artist's different interpretations of the project and how they tie together as a whole piece.  It's a good challenge to be stretched in different directions each month.