Canvas to the Imagination

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.

For the past few weeks I have been slowly working on a proposal for an artist residency happening later this year. I began writing it over a month ago but realized there was so much preliminary exploration and thinking I needed to do before I could really write the thing. So I backtracked a bit, sifted through my ideas and thoughts, and figured out what I wanted to do. Yesterday I sat down again to make a proper attempt at writing and this morning was able to send off a first draft to a team of editor friends for review and feedback.

The paper cut designs I’ve been focused on lately is part of the work I am hoping to explore further with this residency. I just hope I’m articulate enough in my proposal to make it interesting.

These four designs were created over the course of the past week. I’m using black card stock, and backing these with brightly coloured paper. Each iteration begins with the same basic crescent shape to create a larger organic form, and is done through freehand cutting of the paper.

I’m excited to see the group of these together. I know I can keep working in the same way to create infinite variations of these organic designs. They are enjoyable to make because there is an aspect of meditation to the repetition of cutting, and looking at the finished form gives me the same feeling I get when working on them.

I’ve never been much of a sketcher of ideas, but lately this seems to work well when it comes to working on new paper cut designs in my sketchbook. But instead of a pencil I work with an exacto blade.

The top image is of the sketchbook work, and the bottom image is of a “paper test” on a scrap piece of map.

I really want to work with recycled/reclaimed paper and since I recently acquired a pile of large topographic maps, this is the paper I hope to work with going forward with the paper cuts. I really like the combination of materials and design, and the paper the map is printed upon is fairly decent to work with.