Canvas to the Imagination

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 6″ x 6″ | Etsy listing

Paper Cut Collage 8″ x 8″ | Etsy listing

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….

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.

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.

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.

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.

Untitled | 6″ x 6″

Untitled (detail) | 6″ x 6″

Untitled | 8″ x 8″

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.