Daily Projects: 36 Days of Type

On Monday the latest edition of 36 Days of Type went live for the ninth year, and for the first time I am participating. I had planned way ahead to take part because I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to play and explore new ideas. 

I decided early on that I would not hand make everything and definitely not create finished paper-crafted pieces. It’s just too much to take on for a daily project. I decided to use my digital cutter to create many of the pattern layers, and I cut them each in more than one colour. The letter forms are hand-cut because I needed them to be perfect, and the digital cutter is far from perfect. It too often has sudden meltdowns that lead to mis-cut patterns and butchered paper. 

I compose each letter design using four or five layers with foam core spacers in between each, take a few photos, and then pull it apart to create the next letter. I’m working with six colours, and cycling through four of those colours as the top letter layers – red, violet, indigo, and bright blue. These are the first four of my upcoming 26 letters and 10 numbers.

 

 

 

In case you are wondering, the inner shapes of the A, B and D are floating there on tiny pieces of foam core. 

I was looking for a project to energize, challenge, and inspire me, and this is absolutely doing the job. It’s an incredible amount of work, even without hand-making everything, but so worth it.

 

28 Days of Hearts – Day 28

It’s Day 28 – the last day of 28 Days of Hearts! I love this final piece in the series, using a satin stitch to create a heart made of thread within the paper heart. I used a gorgeous variegated indigo sashiko thread that has been waiting patiently in my stash of supplies for far too long.

For the final piece of the project, I am going to put together another stop motion video of all 28 hearts. Stay tuned!

 

28 Days of Hearts – Day 26

For this Day 26 design I’d originally drawn a swirl of lines flowing across the entire heart shape. As I started cutting I realized this was too intricate for such a small piece of paper, so I selectively cut what I’d drawn on the back. The remaining uncut shape is sort of weird, but also wonderful.

 

28 Days of Hearts – Day 25

Day 25 started as a paper cut only project, but once the cutting was done the shape no longer read well as a heart. I decided to collage patterned paper underneath the cut pattern. I love the combination of the two together.

 

28 Days of Hearts – Day 24

I started the Day 24 heart working with blue gel pen on white card stock, and it just wasn’t working for me. The paper was not the right surface for the gel pen. I switched to a white gel pen on red paper and this time I was much happier with the drawing.

This drawing makes me think of elegant embroidery embellishments on clothing.

 

28 Days of Hearts – Day 23

Day 23 came together in a snap. I immediately decided this 70s paper was the starting point of today’s collage, and then using the Bauhaus pattern seemed like the obvious choice for the second half of the heart. I really like the combination.

 

28 Days of Hearts – Day 21

I decided to revisit paper embroidery again for the series, and went with bullion knots in blue thread for Day 21. I did not plan out what I was going to do beforehand so the design I came up with is a bit of an improvised mess, but I like it. 

Embroidering paper is unforgiving. Once you punch a hole through the surface to make a stitch, you’re committed, even if you misjudge the position of a stitch.

 

28 Days of Hearts – Day 20

I had intended to use even more coloured paper in this composition for Day 20, but then making it started to feel too time consuming. I decided to leave sections of the white card stock, which is the base paper, showing through.

I try to limit the time I spend on these to an hour or under. Cutting, shaping, and positioning these pieces turned out to be surprisingly complex.