The art of papercutting apparently dates back to 6th century China (thank you, Wikipedia!) and involves cutting outlines or portraits, usually out of black paper. Recently the artist Rob Ryan has made papercutting popular; his designs are printed onto all sorts of gifts and his artwork and items showing his designs are often featured in the 'living' pages of magazines.
After doing a sewing class at the Make Lounge last year, I am on their mailing list and noticed a few months back that they were offering a papercutting class. It looked like a really interesting hobby and something that I could potentially incorporate into my card making, so I decided to go along to one of their evening sessions.
The class was taught by Suzy Taylor, who specialises in folk art papercuts. Check out her website and her post about the class I took here:
You don't need much in terms of equipment to make papercuts. You need a sharp blade - you can use a knife or even scissors but the best thing to use is an artist's scalpel. You also need a mat to cut on so you don't damage the table! It's also a lot easier if you follow a template or pattern. So to start, you select the piece of paper you want to use - black generally works best but you can use any colour. On the back (if you have a piece of paper that is only coloured on one side), draw the picture you want to cut. Lines need to be touching each other so every part of the picture is still attached when you cut it out, otherwise you end up with big holes in your paper. If you are including words, you also need to write the letters backwards so they are the right way round when you turn the paper over.
To start with we practiced cutting out simple flowers, then moved onto either our own designs or using a template Suzy had prepared. There are tips on how to make your own template on her blog (see link above).
I chose a piece of black paper that had a tree and birds lightly drawn on the back, and spent about an hour carefully cutting around it. I stuck it onto a piece of green paper and backed that onto black card. I was really proud of it!
These look amazing!! Love the family tree :)
ReplyDeleteHi Caroline
ReplyDeleteI've awarded you a Liebster Blog Award! Check it out here and pass it on :) http://themorethanoccasionalbaker.blogspot.com/2012/02/liebster-blog-award.html
These are great! The history on paper cutting was interesting.
ReplyDeleteThank you! It's not as hard as it looks, to do something basic anyway - but I'm amazed at some of the intricate designs I've seen!
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