I’m thrilled to announce that I am part of the Art Gallery at Carleton Place Collective!
The Carleton Place Collective lovingly provides a full spectrum of services to support Mental Health, Wellness, and Expressive Arts in the community.
Welcome! I am a full-time Canadian artist on a mission to help you live artfully. In addition to the art here, I love creating special orders/commissions, so please contact me if you have any ideas for a piece that you would like to see. Estimates are free. Humble gratitude ❤️ for your time and love of art. 🙂
🎉🎉🎉 It’s been (or should I say ‘bean’?) a long time coming… I have a whole new show up at Vanilla Beans Cafe & Creamery in Westport, ON! The preeminent proprietors have obligingly offered their endearing establishment to show and sell my mosaics. ❤ Drop in for a latte and cinnamon bun (or Ontario-made Kawartha Dairy Ice Cream!) in charming downtown Westport at 34 Main Street.
⏰ Autumn Hours: Wed-Sat 9AM-4:30PM * Sun 11AM-4:30PM * Mon-Tues closed.
I welcome commissions (special orders), and I have Compassionate Pricing in effect, if you need it. xo. For those who are new to my art practice, my medium is Paper Tile Mosaic, which is a personal invention. I make paper look like ceramic tile. I use recycled paper, archival inks and vegetable dyes, and acrylic medium.
As you might know, at Christmas, I collaborated with the Ottawa Stray Cat Rescue to develop “Tip Toe Through the Tulips”, a variable edition of mosaics featuring tulips and cats. That was quite a story that began with an internet scam, and resulted in rescue.
Well, I am absolutely honoured to be asked again to team up! For Valentine’s Day, at their suggestion, I developed a new edition of cat mosaics. “Cute as a Button” will be an edition of 14 mosaics featuring an image of a heart-shaped pillow with a _real_ button on it next to a kitty. As with the previous edition, clients can send me a photograph of their cat, and I will produce a likeness in mosaic, thus the ‘variable edition’.
The artworks come framed, labelled/signed, and glossed. Each is 5×8″, and is $160 (with $30 going directly to OSCR).
So far, three have been made: a Tuxedo kitty with green eyes; a one-eyed tortoiseshell kitty, and a black ‘house panther’. At time of this writing, 11 are remaining in the edition. Feel free to get in touch, if you would like to support the OSCR, and immortalize your feline (have a photo of your fur baby ready to send to me!). 🙂
**UPDATE: “Cute as a Button” edition created!**
In late October, I received an Instagram alert that I had an incoming message from Texas. A follower of my Art By Choleena account was asking if I take commissions. They wanted a mosaic portrait of their dog. Having never sketched a dog, I wrote back with hesitant enthusiasm that I would love to try but that that subject matter is new to me. I said that I would not ask for a down-payment until I did some sketches and felt assured that I can draw dogs.
My first-ever attempt at drawing a dog. I was quite happy with the result, and so was the ‘scammer client’. (I was pleased to be able to work my new skill into a benefit for a local stray cat rescue!)
After several sketches, I was confident that I could create a likeness of their dog, so I requested an e-transfer down-payment of $125. Instead, the client emailed a low-resolution, heavily-pixelated image of a cheque. Surprisingly, the cheque was for $1000. Accompanying the cheque was a note indicating that the client’s account had a charge-back dispute so their bank instructed them to only pay with a cheque. In addition, their bank had a minimum amount of $1000 for cheques, so I would have to return the overage of $875. Highly suspicious, I contacted the client with my concerns and let them know that it was akin to well-known Internet scams. After some odd responses, including them scolding me for not trusting them, the client ghosted me. I guess that’s how it goes. They push until it’s clear that you’re not falling for it, and then they disappear. So, I ‘scratched’ the commission.
During the project (but before the ghosting), I had proudly posted the image on social media; many liked and commented on it. My friend Linda Berube responded asking if it was possible for me to draw cats, and would I consider donating a piece to a holiday fundraiser of a rescue group that is dear to her: Ottawa Stray Cat Rescue (OSCatR).
Ottawa Stray Cat Rescue is a non-profit charitable organization dedicated to getting adoptable stray cats off the streets and into loving homes, as well as healthily managing feral cat colonies in the National Capital Region.
No stranger to rescues, and a companion to two rescue dogs and two stray cats, the project seemed purr-fect for me, so I leaped in to help. Linda introduced me to full-time veterinarian and founder of OSCatR, Dr. Katie Jones, and we worked-out the details of collaboration. I produced a playful mosaic that included a black cat and three red tulips. Linda helped with the title “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”, and the piece was put on auction.
My paper mosaics have a lush, glossy finish. I’ve taken a photo at an angle to show the surface.
It received an excellent response, and soon the concept was expanded to a Variable Edition of 9 more cats (an apt number for felines). A Variable Edition (VE) is a numbered set of images that are similar but with the allowance for each image to be varied in some way. In this case, clients could specify their preference for the colour of the cat and the colour of the tulips. Moments after the edition was announced, Dr. Katie pounced at claiming one, as she thought that her orange and white kitty, Sheldon, would look very handsome in mosaic.
All 10 sold quickly, netting a total value of donations to the rescue at $460. It was clear that a second edition would be well received, and so we are taking orders for it. The mosaics are 5×8″, framed in black, and have my classic lush, glossy surface. Each is titled, signed, and numbered with an authentication label on the back, and is $160, with $30 going directly to OSCatR.
Dr. Katie’s adorable Sheldon kitty. 5×8,” framed in black.
If interested in immortalizing your cat with a mosaic artwork, I hope that you will get in touch.
Keeping the momentum going, a set of images has been produced as greeting cards and postcards.
With the kind permission of all the fur-baby parents, the cat images have been turned into greeting cards and postcards!
Talks are also underway to research local dog rescues to partner with and support. I hope to be able to ‘rescue’ the ‘abandoned’ dog drawing, and repurpose it for good. Should you have a proposal, please feel free to contact me.
As you can see, this scam created a confounding cascade of events. What could have been a cat-astrophe, was turned around with paws-itive thinking. 😉
Here are the variations so far…
As part of my large project to have a mini cabin for rent at the back of the property, I wanted trails and little playful things for guests to find in the forest. I decided to have a mini lending library like you would see in the city.
I repainted and did an image transfer on this little cabinet. For the image transfer, I printed a photo of one of my artworks, then used mod podge to transfer it. For the glass work, I used dish-washer-safe mod podge, which is also safe for use in the outdoors.
If you have any questions or want to see what else I make, get in touch through the Contact page, or look up Art By Choleena on Facebook, Etsy, and Instagram.
Supporting local artists and buying Canadian art just got even better! If it meets the following criteria, it qualifies as a tax deduction. Perhaps it’s finally time to invest in your home office/work space?
The art must be:
Get in touch with your Accountant for the full details.
Source: Investing in Canadian Art — A Tax Perspective, by CASCADE Chartered Professional Accountants LLC
One of my corporate clients, InGenius Software, has purchased more than one piece from me. Here is an image from 2013, where we are getting ready to hang a large telephone booth mosaic of mine. This very talented, Ottawa-based firm provides companies like the Government of Canada, Nortel, and Telus with IT recruitment, custom software products, and telephony software solutions. It was their telephony software slant that drew them to my “Telephone Booth”. Above, owners Rich Loen and Dale Gantous pose with me just after delivery. That wall shape and colour was made for this particular artwork, don’t you think?
UPDATE: I’m thrilled to announce that Rich and Dale have won many awards over the years, and have sold InGenius Software to Upland Software. Here is their new website at Upland.
We are thrilled to have finally realized one of our dreams to share this place with you! Beautiful 270 acres of mixed forest, open field, and biodiverse marsh all for yourself! In the wild countryside just North of the Historic Town of Perth, Ontario. Includes large fire pit, cookstoves, covered deck, 10 × 10 wood cabin (sleeps 2-3), groomed camp/tent sites for your additional guests to pitch their tents. We only rent to one person/party at a time so the whole place is yours to share with whomever you like or just with yourself!
14% discount for booking a week+ stay. We supply just about everything!
It’s Glamping (a mash-up of glamorous camping) — making it easy to have an outdoor getaway, especially for folk who are new to camping.
Open year-round. Mini wood stove heats the cabin. Snowshoes freely available.
Just a little post to show you what I just finished! 😀 The little nails/tacks in the ‘leather’ of the mask are from my late Grandfather’s shoe-making tools, and the screen in the mask filter is from a window that my dog tore out one day when frustrated that we had the audacity to leave the house without him! The artwork itself was inspired by “Son of Man” and other pieces of Belgian surrealist painter, René Magritte. To view my other artworks, I hope that you will visit my Etsy Shop. To have a custom theme/special-order artwork made just for you, get in touch anytime. It would be a pleasure to work with you on a piece.
Just finishing up this special order (commission) of a mosaic of a bunch of grapes. It contains about 525 tesserae (cut pieces). It is paper-based but I create a multi-layer, raised surface with heavy gloss to make it look like ceramic. It is easily dusted with a damp cloth. I have yet to frame and gloss it. This is a special order by a repeat client in Ottawa, Ontario!
