I’ve played with the idea before of making a piece of work with both paper cut designs and drawing, but they were both smaller and simpler. Last week I sat down at my easel with the idea of creating something more complicated, and so I dove into making this new concentric circles piece.

I outlined the circles first and then worked on creating the alternating cut paper circles, leaving the drawing until last. As I worked on the drawing I really struggled with seeing the piece through to the end because it felt like it wasn’t working. While in process, I thought the drawings and cut designs were fighting against one another and the piece was far too busy overall.

I forced myself to keep going, and when I reached the end I could finally see that it all does work together. Now I view it as a powerful piece of work that is full of energy.

The full size of this paper cut & drawing is 14″ x 17″ on archival drawing paper.