For the month of February I am working on a new daily project by revisiting 28 Days of Hearts, which I originally did in 2018. The intention is to create a small heart-shaped piece of handmade art each day. It can be a collage, a drawing, or a cut pattern.
Day 1 is a collage composed of three different red and metallic papers.
I haven’t been making or creating very much lately. I’m looking forward to working on this, and flexing the creative muscles.
Every time I compose and cut a new pattern mixing piece I learn something new about composition flow and the structure of a pattern interpreted in cut paper. This piece is the most densely packed with lines and complex designs of all the ones created so far. It felt like it took a long time to draw, and then an even longer amount of time to cut.
The hexagon pattern broken into lined squares is based upon a photo of a tiled floor my friend Barb shared with me through Instagram. I had to simplify the lines to make it work at the scale I was cutting.
The pattern featured in the half-circle section below is based upon a Japanese textile pattern from a book on the subject. It was very challenging to draw because there are so many elements to it, and then even moreso to cut, for the same reason. I left that section until last because I knew it would take me the longest to get through. Sometimes this work is an endurance test.
The finished piece is hand-cut from Canson Mi-Teintes Bordeaux paper, and the actual size is 24 x 20.5 inches.
This pattern mixing piece in green paper began as a sketchbook drawing. I tried to stick as closely as possible to the original layout as I translated it into this larger piece. It’s the strangest shape I’ve worked with yet with its mix of sharp angles and curves.
My biggest struggle when drawing these is working with the French curve templates I have the are often slightly too small to cover the area I am trying to trace a line. I’ve figured out a way to make it work though. It’s also tricky to use my compass to draw partial circles because I can’t get it to expand as wide as I would like. I should look into whether I can find a larger version of both tools.
This piece has the most made-up-on-the-fly patterns (as I was drawing) of any of the work to date. I think because at this point I’d been thinking and looking at patterns enough that I could now come up with my own. I included one section of freeform cutting using my classic repeating crescent shape.
Pattern mixing in green (not the actual title) is hand-cut from Canson Mi-Tientes paper, and is 25 x 17.5 inches in size.
Earlier today I was looking at the sketchbook drawing this piece is based upon and realized how much more complex it became in the final version. It was always a diptych but the paper cut version walked away with additional sections and way more elaborate patterning.
This turquoise blue paper is my number one favourite of all the colours in the Canson Mi-tientes range. (It is sooooooo goooooood). I could use it again and again to make all sorts of things.
With this piece I really started to consider the line weight of each pattern, which is something tricky to figure out in the drawing stage. I like that the upper sections of both half-circles have sections that are matching in airiness because the paper is mostly cut away, while the sections below are more dense. This was not planned, so clearly dumb luck panned out well with this piece.
The final version is hand-cut from Canson Mi-teintes paper, and each one is 18 inches by 10 inches.
This is the second in my new series of pattern mixing paper cut pieces. I finished this piece in late June, and was super jazzed about how beautiful it turned out. The paper is a vibrant Poppy Orange and the patterns play together in an energetic way that is pleasing to the eye.
I hand drew most of the patterns in this piece but I also decided to use some previously cut paper pieces as stencils to trace some of the most complicated ones – like the Islamic geometric pattern inside the circle. Those ones always feel intimidatingly complicated to hand draw.
This piece is another that began as an idea in my sketchbook, exploring composition and a pretty crude mixing of pattern ideas. It’s been so helpful to have these drawings, capturing ideas, to refer back to when working on a more refined and finished piece.
The lozenge is hand-cut from Canson Mi-teintes paper, and the finished size is 22″ x 16.5″.
This is the first in a new series of pattern mixing pieces I started working on back in late May/early June. I’ve been pondering creating this work for a loooooong time, and only figured out how to bring it to life thanks to planning and drawing in a sketchbook. (I’ll share some of those at a later date).
I’m terrible at pre-planning work but in order to evolve/improve how I create work I needed to add this to my process. I spent a long time sketching out ideas before ever moving on to the next stage of making, and then I now use this sketchbook work as reference.
I did practice drawing patterns and mixing them together in the sketches, but the biggest leap was how to lay them out within the larger form. I don’t pre-plan ahead of time what patterns to include and instead make those decisions as I go.
I’m using a few different books as reference for patterns, but also still like to include non-repeating patterns that I “make up” as I draw. I was so thrilled when the first piece felt like it came together successfully. I love its odd organic shape filled with energetic patterns.
The final photo is of the piece hung the opposite way because I was trying to figure out which way worked better as “up”.
The finished piece is hand-cut from Canson Mi-Teintes 90lb paper, and is 25 x 18.25 inches.
Late last year I met with my friends Rebekah and Norberto, who run The Hive Printing, to talk about working together on pieces for a show I have in 2021. I want to include screen prints but don’t have the skills the create the work I have in mind, and asked if they’d be interested in collaborating with me. Lucky for me, they were keen, even though it is something they don’t normally do
Norb produced initial test prints of two potential screen print designs in May. I worked with these to explore ways of cutting the paper that collaborates with the print, and compliments the design, while also not removing too much of the paper. My usual process is to cut most of the paper away, but I want to showcase the cutting and printing in equal measure in this case.
I think pattern cutting small sections of the prints will work very well. I drew my designs on the front of the paper in these tests, but the finished pieces will be worked from the back. Based upon these tests, I think this collaboration is going to work very well.
Towards the end of April my mental health started to collapse. I lost hope, and felt I had nothing to look forward to. I also felt intensely isolated because while I do lots of reaching out to people, very few reach out in return. I’ve struggled with depression in the past and could feel a bad one coming on if I didn’t find a way to cope with this.
I made myself go to the studio to work on this series of pattern paper cut pieces that I started during the Leeway Studio residency in 2015. It was the right thing to do, and just the lifeline I needed.
Up to now there are twenty-six pieces in it, and I’d been procrastinating figuring out how to transform them into a 3D installation for an upcoming show (next year). Giving myself time to work on this aspect of an existing piece of work allowed me to refocus and snapped me out of the bad mental state. It’s been so hard to concentrate or be creative the past few weeks so this project felt like a lifesaver.
Once all twenty-six existing pattern paper cuts were measured, cut, and folded into 3D boxes, then I decided the series needed at least ten more pieces for an even thirty-six. It was fulfilling and satisfying to build momentum and get the entire project into a more complete state.
I still have lots of work to do on this installation before it feels “complete”, and a major hurdle will be assembling and hanging the piece. I’ll figure out this less fun part another time.
To bring it back around to mental health, because that’s where this blog post started, I wrote about this on IG at the time because I hoped my experience would help others. It’s been a crazy struggle of a year, and we all need to do what we can to keep ourselves mentally healthy.
I attended my first all-day sewing class a few weekends ago at Blackbird Fabrics. I was there to construct the Wiksten Haori from scratch, start to finish in one day. This was a feat I’d never previously accomplished (and may never again). I’d bought fabric and the pattern to make the jacket for myself in the spring but had been too intimidated to try and do it on my own.
I was glad to find the class at Blackbird, but it included an unlined version of the pattern and I had to work with fabric chosen by them rather than my own. I was fine with that because I figured I could make another version on my own after the class.
The Haori has an oversized fit with options to make it in three different lengths. The fabric I worked with was a cotton/linen blend with a jacquard texture in black, and I made the small fit Haori in mid-length.
The full day of sewing was epic and exhausting but we were gently and enthusiastically guided step by step through the process by class teacher, Joy Nickerson, with support from Natasha, the workshop co-ordinator at Blackbird. I won’t describe the entire sewing process but we used the serger A LOT, which was my first time doing so, and the whole thing got progressively more challenging the closer we came to finishing. The jacket collar is a whole lot of work to put together and attach.
My version of the Haori has a whole lot of tiny flaws because I am not a great or careful sewer, but it’s all delightfully hidden thanks to the dark fabric. I wore it for five days straight after I made it because I LOVE IT SO MUCH.
Transforming a piece of cloth into a finished garment that you wear home at the end of class made me feel like I had magical powers.
In July I worked on a new daily project called, 31 Days of Paper Play. I felt I needed time to explore and experiment with new techniques, and this was my way to make it happen. I referenced multiple books on paper techniques from my personal library to generate ideas each day.
Daily projects work best when you can do them within half an hour to an hour each day, and set a size limit. I used sheets of 8.5” x 11” pieces of cardstock cut in half as the base material for every piece. I also played a lot with different colours and combinations of colours than I would normally use in my work.
All 31 pieces are hanging on my studio wall. They are so satisfying to look at as a collection of work. I’m glad I decided to do this little project because I needed to shake things up and get inspired.
You can see the entire series in a slideshow in Instagram.