Paper Cut Collage Designs

Now that Got Craft is over I am sharing more of the paper cut collages I made in preparation. Each one is created from a piece of black card stock using freehand paper cutting with an xacto knife. I’ve been using brightly coloured and patterned origami paper to collage them, with an additional piece of cardstock on the back to add thickness. Each one is mounted onto a wooden cradle panel painted black.

Paper Cut Collage Design-3
Paper Cut Collage Design-4
Paper Cut Collage 6″ x 6″ | Etsy listing

Paper Cut Collage Design
Paper Cut Collage Design-2
Paper Cut Collage 8″ x 8″ | Etsy listing

Paper Cut Collage Design
Paper Cut Collage Design-2
Paper Cut Collage 6″ x 6″ | [SOLD]

I’ll share the rest of them tomorrow, and hopefully this week I will get to making larger pieces. Stay tuned….

This Is How Much I Love Red

I haven’t taken a self portrait in ages, and I miss it. It’s always been a means for me to explore portrait ideas, with myself as the very convenient model. I’m not sure why exactly I’ve lost the habit of doing them, but perhaps it has something to do with my waning interest in photography as my passion for paper has flared up.

This is how much I love red

This is actually a self portrait collaboration with Boris. I loved the idea of a photo of myself surrounded by the red tulips, with me in my red jacket. Unfortunately I didn’t bring a tripod with me so Boris had to play that role. He didn’t quite get the angle I was hoping for so I made some additions and adjustments in photoshop. The results: an endless field of tulips and nothing but the colour red.

In Celebration of Tulips

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On the weekend Boris and I did a day trip across the border into Washington to see the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. It was a warm sunny day, perfect for spending time outside looking at masses of flowers.

When we drove up to our first stop (a farm with giant fields of yellow and red tulips) my mind was a bit blown even though I knew what to expect. It’s one thing to see pictures, and quite another to have such intense colours shining back at you and stretching on into the horizon.

Tulip Festival. Skagit County, Washington

Tulip Festival. Skagit County, Washington

Tulip Festival. Skagit County, Washington

Tulip Festival. Skagit County, Washington

Tulip Festival. Skagit County, Washington

What you can’t see here are all the other people hanging about wandering through the flowers. I managed to make it look as if we had the place to ourselves.

I have more photos to upload and will be adding them to this set on Flickr.

Collaging Into Spring

With all the bird and flowering tree watching I tend do, it’s no surprise both have made their way into these two recent collages.

These evolved even more spontaneously than usual. I chose pieces of sewing pattern paper and glued them down as the backgrounds for each before deciding what else I would do. It worked out very well, especially the top one with the lines suggesting the branches of a Sakura tree.

Bird collage

Bird collage-2

The materials used in these are the same as previous collages; sewing pattern paper, security envelopes, book page scraps, and red paper. I created the flower shapes using a paper punch rather than freehand cutting as I usually do.

Bird collage-3

Bird collage-4

These are not yet listed on Etsy, but will be later this week. Thanks to a conversation with my fellow artists I’m rethinking how I price some of the recent work I’ve created.

Bringing Together Paper Cuts and Collage

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I realized yesterday that I need to come up with a title for the series of organic looking paper cut forms I’ve been working on. My mind is drawing a blank at the moment so I’m open to suggestions.

When I shared some of these the other week they seemed more like a sketch than a finished piece. I’d been contemplating what to do further with them in terms of finishing and display. I liked backing the paper cut designs with coloured paper, but I hated the idea of enclosing them in traditional matting and framing. Then I came across Bill Zindel’s Geometric Collage and my brain began churning around the idea of collaging them with many different patterned papers.

I used the same three different patterned origami papers with both of these, and pieced it together at the back. I backed everything with a second piece of black card stock and cut away the excess paper. They are mounted onto wood panels (what is normally the back) and I painted these black for a more dramatic effect.

Origami collage paper cut-3
Untitled | 6″ x 6″

Origami collage paper cut-4
Untitled (detail) | 6″ x 6″

Origami collage paper cut
Untitled | 8″ x 8″

Origami collage paper cut-2
Untitled (detail) | 8″ x 8″

The patterned paper gives them a nice KAPOW of colour and plays off the smaller shapes within the larger form.

Once I figure out my pricing I’ll be making these available in my Etsy shop, as well as sharing them with the public at Got Craft? on May 6th.

Sakura

Early spring in Vancouver was cold and rainy, and it felt as if warmer weather was never going to arrive. But those precious warm blue sky days have come at last and I’ve been getting outside to make the most of it.

I snap an endless amount of photos of the beautiful flowering trees found everywhere in our city at this time of year. I cannot get enough of them, their beauty is always a magical sight to see.

Untitled

Untitled

Cherry blossoms

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Untitled

Paper Birds Wading in a Paper World

These days I’m switching back and forth between paper cuts and collages as I prepare work for Got Craft and beyond. These two are the latest in the bird collages on wooden panel. I really like them.

I’ve been holding onto a few scrap pieces of book pages I’d cut shapes from and made use of them in these two finished pieces. Note the book page at the top of the Black Oyster Catcher collage, and the one at the bottom of the Sandpiper collage to see what I mean.

Bird Collage - Sandpiper

Bird Collage - Sandpiper
Sandpiper Collage | 10″ x 10″ | Etsy Listing

Bird Collage - Black Oyster Catcher

Bird Collage - Black Oyster Catcher
Black Oyster Catcher Collage | 10″ x 10″ | Etsy Listing

Both are available for purchase through my Etsy shop.

Guest Workshop at Blim – Spring Session

Blim has invited me to teach another introduction to altered books workshop, coming up at the end of April.

To get an idea of some of the work you can make in this class, check out the set on Flickr of work made by students from previous workshops.

Altered Book Workshop at Blim - Student Work

For further details and to register for the class, please visit the Blim website.

Altered Book Workshop at Blim
Date: Saturday, April 28th, 2012
Time: 2 to 5pm
Cost: $74.80 ($65 + tax + $2 service charge)
Location: 115 Pender St. E, Vancouver