Canvas to the Imagination

Hooray! Hooray!! I’ve completed the paper cut design I’ve been working on for the past week or so. The finished paper size is 24″ x 19″, which is definitely the largest one of these I’ve completed to date.

I’m very pleased with this because I didn’t think I’d make it all the way to the end. The process of cutting paper is very addictive…

Last week I mentioned beginning work on larger paper cut work, and this is the second of the two. The paper size is approximately 19″ x 24″ and is a thinner stock than the grey paper I was working with last week to create the flower shaped paper cut.

I’m enjoying working with the basic crescent shape and having the design flow around the page. Sometimes they become tornados, then seashells, and morph into imaginary microscopic organisms.

When I’d cut away about a quarter of the paper I came close to calling it quits because it seemed like an impossible amount of surface area to work with. I was overwhelmed because I don’t normally work this large. I’ve managed to push past that phase and will obsessively cut away paper until I reach the end.

For the past month I’ve been creating small paper cut designs to practise and refine my technique. This week I wanted to begin working larger but I wasn’t sure about exactly what I wanted to do, so I started playing around with ideas in my sketchbook. It seems funny to use a sketchbook for paper cutting instead of drawing but it did lead me in the right direction.

I went with smaller cuts to create a more intricate design. The image below is the one I created in my sketchbook

I took the same design and began working on a grey piece of paper that proved to be ridiculously hard on the hands to work with. It’s a thicker stock than I’ve worked with previously and it wore through numerous blades and exhausted my fingers. I’d originally intended to cut the whole piece of paper, but I’m going to leave it as it is and move on to something else.

This is the final design with seven flowers. I’m thinking about cutting away most of the rest of the paper so there is just a thin outline of grey around the main design. Hopefully my fingers can withstand it.

Next up: going even larger (but with thinner paper)…