I started this papercutting a few months ago, but then the kids' summer holiday started and it got shelved for a few weeks. So finally today, with the boys back at school and Poppy at kindergarten for 3 hours, I managed to get it finished. Yay! Hope you like it.
Jewish Wedding Papercutting (13.5" x 13.5")
Hi Suzy!
ReplyDeleteThis looks brilliant — you do such a wonderful job!
I commented a while ago, wanting to ask questions — just before you went on holidays.
I really want to know (a) where and how you get your prints made, and (b) do you have a special technique for cutting small circles?
I've only just started and am on my fourth papercut picture. I absolutely love it!
Hi Lesley
ReplyDeleteI take my originals to a lovely Italian guy who runs his own printing business in Hackney. It's called Digitalarte. He makes amazingly high quality art prints on the most gorgeous paper. But, like anything worth doing well, it's not cheap. I know a lot of people print their own work using archival papers and an epson printer. But many of my pictures are too large for my scanner, so I have to get them done professionally.
Your second question is a more technical one. Cutting small circles is frustrating. If you look really carefully at my work, you'll see that many of them aren't very circular! The way I do it (and I use a craft knife, not scissors) is to make lots of tiny little straight cuts. If the hole is very small, it still gives the optical illusion of being a circle. Although a lot of mine still look a bit "eye" shaped. I did try using a craft knife with a swivel blade, but not very successfully. The blade is very short and it's difficult to see what you're doing with it.
Another thing a tried was a hole punch (used by scrapbooking folks) - it looks a bit like a pen and you place the end over the place you want the hole, pull up on a spring and the top and then release it. It's supposed to punch a clean hole in the paper. But again, this wasn't very successful as the end tends to slip a bit when you release the spring, so often the hole isn't exactly where you want it. Also, it didn't always punch all the way through the paper, so I ended up having to cut it anyway. So basically my advice to you is to practice with the knife.
I hope that's useful for you. Would love to see your work sometime! Good luck!
Suzy
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Thanks, Suzy, and for coming by my blog.
ReplyDeleteI had a close-up look at the latest papercut Rob Ryan is showing on his blog, and the holes are perfect, and probably done as you suggest, with some sort of punch.
But the cut-out bobbles on the curtain fringe/pelmet are far from perfect — so obviously I just don't have to worry about it, so long as the viewer's eye can 'read' them as circles!!
So much fun!
... and also, the larger your scale, the easier the holes will be. I think Rob Ryan's originals are at least A3 in size, if you look on his blog at the way he works.
ReplyDelete