In December I shared two paper cut pieces featuring the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, which I’d created for an upcoming exhibition in Victoria. Both ended up selling within a week of completion (yay!) and so I needed to make something else to meet the commitment for the show.

I decided to make two new pieces, one to revisit the white rabbit and the other inspired by the Cheshire cat.

When I began working on the Cheshire Cat I had just seen “My Neighbour Totoro” the previous evening. I decided the character of the Catbus with it’s HUGE grin made for the perfect face to use for this. I chose to cut leaf shapes to suggest the tree where Alice first encounters the Cheshire Cat in the story.

I drew the leaf pattern before cutting, which is not my usual thing for creating a paper cut. The top and bottom layers are cut from single sheets of paper and mounted into the wood cradle panel. The cat face is also a separate piece of paper.

For the white rabbit I decided to do a variation on the one I’d created originally. I really wanted it included in the show but wasn’t interested in reproducing the exact same work. I cut two layers of circles rather than three, and placed the white rabbit more centrally.

I didn’t like this one as much as the first but it’s grown on me. There is something about having three layers of circles that has more impact and interest. I’m going to explore this idea further in future work I think.

Both pieces can be seen next month in Curiouser, at the Fifty Fifty Arts Collective in Victoria.