Christmas Countdown Local 2022 #4/25 - Trees & Art for Charity

It looks magical - the Hamilton Wesley Uniting Church ( Beaumont Street, Hamilton - an inner city suburb of Newcastle, NSW) is home to 14 Christmas Trees decorated by local community organisations. It is an opportunity for these charities to bring joy to the community as well as promote the good work these organisations do. As the church is open to the public every day, it is also an opportunity for visitors to enjoy the trees, vote for their favourite and donate to the charity nominated.

Last week I dropped by to have a look at the tree which my doll makers group decorated ( I'll show that one in another post). However, I was happy to see a beautiful tree resplendent in gold and white, decorated in the style of a century ago celebrating the centenary of the Rotary Club of Newcastle. It is the oldest Rotary club and service club in this city and continues to do good work as do the other many other Rotary clubs in the area. Congratulations to the Rotarians not only on this stunning tree, but also on achieving 100 years of service to the community!

Rotary Club of Newcastle Charity Tree

As a contrast, there was a very contemporary tree nearby decorated with colourful paper planes. It represents an organisation called 'Little Wings" which I confess I didn't know about, so I did some research . Much needed support here in regional Australia where distance ca use such additional stress and unnecessary expense to a family already in distress.

Little Wings: For any parent or guardian, discovering that your precious child has a life-threatening illness can be truly heartbreaking. It’s even harder when the waves of pain come with the emotional and financial strain of being away from your family and home, while your child braves treatment..

Litttle Wings is a non for profit organization providing sick children and their families, throughout regional NSW, with free ongoing flight and ground transport during the treatment process. At Little Wings, ‘Your Journey is Our Mission’ and Little Wings are here to help you through the toughest situations, thanks to the hard work and generous support of our community of partners, volunteers and supporters . From Little Wings website

Little Wings Charity Tree

I will write more about some of the other trees in future posts, but in the meantime, if you are in the area, pay a visit - you are sure to catch the true spirit of Christmas here.

The Sea - for Tag Tuesday

For the current challenge "The Sea" at Tag Tuesday, I made a couple of painted/ hand drawn tags . These were created from a piece of watercolour paper which had been sprayed with acrylic paint - blue, yellow and quinacridone gold. I then sketched over the top , trying to follow some pattern created by the splatter and then add some felt tip pen lines watercolour pencil to highlight the shapes. The tags represent the fantasies of the hidden city of Atlantis and a mermaid. With this theme in mind, I also add a free motion stitched tag I made earlier this year for 29 Faces -

In the Pink

At Tag Tuesday . Pinky O' Hagan is hosting a tag challenge which asks for 'a bit of pink".... not so difficult if you like pink. I don't use a lot of pink in my work, so it was quite a bit of a challenge when I thought only of pink - my thoughts went to pink roses, pink hearts, pink confectionery !!! Then I referred to this week's colour prompts, #coloricombo by artists Este MacLeod.... pink with sap green, dark tea, and sea green. I'm not sure I got the colours in this palette exactly, but here is my tag, a stylised landscape - The collaged background of the tag has torn pieces of watercolour art rejects, painted magazine pages and a little bit of gift paper. The tree silhouette is decorated with paper dots, cut with a hole puncher.

Fish and Sticks : Art Dolls

This week I've been working on fish and sticks .... The sticks are the message stick art dolls which were very popular, attracting some attention and a few orders at the Wise Women exhibition. Each of the message stick dolls are from the Wise Women series, each with her own personality and message of wisdom, handwritten on a handmade timber tag. I gather the sticks during my walks around my neighbourhood and the tags are made from special bits of timber, some collected by me or my husband or from off cuts gifted to us from another doll making friend whose husband makes bagpipes. These dolls start off very simply with a wrap around a stick, in the general shape of a body. 'Naked" message stick dolls - strips of wadding wrapped around found sticks. Then I usually wrap other layers of fabric, wool, and/or fibres, over which I do some simple embroidery. I sculpt or mould small face masks for these dolls. I really like using "sari ribbon" as w...

Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

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