About Us

Lea Davis and Carolyn Ballantine live in Melbourne, Australia and have been friends and business partners for over fifteen years. Collectively, they have more than 45 years painting experience between them. BrushWeaver was the brain child which formed out of their unique work.

Throughout the beginning years both attended many specialist classes taught by local and international teachers learning a variety of styles and techniques. Slowly, their individual styles emerged with Carolyn preferring to paint with a flat brush while Lea only uses a round brush. Teaching classes locally for up to 60 students a week was the norm for both and life was hectic but stimulating with International travel teaching and Conventions scheduled frequently.

BrushWeaver creates unique one of a kind hand painted designs and we love to use ‘found’ furniture. Some call our raw pieces second hand, junk or more endearingly pre-loved, but each piece we choose is special in some way and the design potential is assessed before purchase. Each piece has its own ‘feel’ and we’re especially drawn to things that have a history behind them – old things showing signs of wear, with nicks and bumps and scratches that remind us that another family has enjoyed this piece in their home at some time in the past.

Lea enjoys working on dimensional surfaces because of the scope available to develop a story. Often intricate repetitive designs weave around the surfaces and every side is decorated either with colour – or colour and design – and sometimes with a touch of humour. She hopes to take the viewer to somewhere magical, to the simple joys and innocence of childhood where the imagination can wander ….. Browse through the gallery and you will see pieces that were painted with our own hands from our unique original designs. These designs, that take weeks to sketch and many more to paint, are shown on a variety of surfaces and come from our heart to yours.

We have an uncompromising desire never to take shortcuts with our work. Each piece has been sanded, filled, sanded, painted, sanded and varnished with some original surfaces having up to ten coats of thick oil based paint! All the paints and varnish we use are of artist quality and are non toxic. The varnish we choose to use is a resin based polyurethane which provides the hardest acrylic finish available.

Lea and Carolyn are story tellers, who use a brush instead of a pen to weave stories for future generations to enjoy.