23 August 2009

Paper Cuttings: My Silhouette and more ...

Silhouette artist S. John Ross made this cutting of myself at age ten, when I got to visit my first ever Royal Easter Show in Sydney. I only just thought about this silhouette buried amongst lots of old photographs.

A web search for this silhouette artist and I was able to locate this link to his background.

It really is quite amazing I think, that during this year, I've "found" paper-cutting to be such a fascinating and rewarding craft myself ... more than fifty years after S. John Ross cut this portrait.

At Klezmershack I found an interesting papercut by Evelyn Maizels. It had been created for a narrative drawing class in the continuing studies program at the Art Institute in Chicago, under the direction of Susan Gofstein, and was published within the Klezkanada newsletter in 2005.

Since I'm always on the look out for new and innovative patterns I sent an email, and Evelyn kindly allowed me permission to work with her design (for personal use only), and to also display my version here.

This cutting measures just 9.5 cm x 7 cm (3.75" x 2.75").

Note: Please respect copyright belongs to Evelyn Maizels and that no commercial use may be made of this image.

Yet another take on one of my favourite patterns by Cynthia Lyle and Pam Neely from Backstreet Designs. The sentiment was stamped with Versamark ink and embossed with Old Gold.

I've decided to discontinue using aerosol glue for adhering my papercuts to cardstock. Now I'll only use a non-toxic, acid-free glue-stick. It means simply smearing a little glue with my finger on random parts of my papercut, just enough to secure. Not only is the glue-stick user-friendly, but there is an added bonus in the element of the papercut seemingly left 'floating' on the background, which I also find aesthetically pleasing.



6 comments:

Jóna said...

Hi Carol !
I joined Bloggers Unite and found your blog there. I am living on the top (if you are down under)in Iceland. We honestly are on the bottom, in the economic collapse, so it is ? who is down under :o)

I love your creation it is beautiful and I love animals so it is wonderful to see your photos too.
Have a nice day when you wake up to the spring, the autumn is coming here.
Jóna (Yona)

Shawna said...

Wow! The papercuttings are gorgeous! How in the world do you do that?!?!?!?

Shawna said...

Gorgeous! How in the world do you do that paper cutting!?!?!

Lori said...

Hi Carole, Your paper cuttings are absolutely gorgeous!!! Wow! This is a dying art. I remember my art teacher from many, many years ago, creating our silhouettes so we could give them as gifts at Xmas to our parents. That was back in the 60's!

La Donna Welter said...

Just beautiful(both your silouette & your papercut)!
La Donna

EvelynM said...

Carol,
You've done a lovely small version of the papercut design. My originals - several versions were larger, at 11 X 14 inches. The first was plain white heavy watercolor paper, the second version was also heavy white watercolor paper, which I then painted, and it was mounted shadowbox style about an inch from the background which was copper-metallic paper. The third version was multilayered - was cut in dark blue paper, with a white cut layer shifted slightly so both showed, with an uncut translucent vellum sheet in between, all mounted against a french-blue background. The internet image was scanned off the dark blue version.