SUSIE MALLETT

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Wednesday 9 April 2014

Cutting Images



Humming Bird paper-cut - finished all but a few leaves.

 

Last weekend I attended a second, more advanced Scheerenschnitt (paper-cutting) course where I spent five hours snipping away at a new work of art.

The course took place just a few hundred metres from my front door, which meant I could have a leisurely breakfast on the balcony before the ten o’clock start.

All of this was just a stone’s throw from the home and studio of the famous Nürnberg artist Albrecht Dürer.

I was not prepared myself for this course as had I wanted to. Having learnt the basics at the first course and now knowing how to prepare images for cutting I had wanted to at least have a motive sorted out for my next paper-art work and perhaps even have it traced on to the black paper, but I had not had the opportunity to get to the drawing board. To tell the truth it was not until the children at work were so excited by a recent flower image that I had snipped as a birthday card and they all wanted to colour in (http://www.susie-mallett.org/2014/04/sharing-enthusiasmteam-works-picture-ps.html) that I decided to do another, but bigger, flowery image.






I decide that I would take a few photographs on the way up the hill of the daffodils around the castle moat and then compose a drawing directly from these photographs on to the back of the black paper, but as I was going out of the door I caught a glimpse of the picture at the top of this posting. It is one that my Dad painted for me for my fiftieth birthday.



I grabbed it, removed it from the frame and popped it in my folder.

This was the perfect solution, using his image to cut a silhouette I could then print a few copies for him to use as greetings cards.

There were seven of us at the course this time, the two ladies whom I had met in the autumn and four others. There was not a lot of time to get to know each other as with our heads down we drew and snipped to our hearts content with little thought to conversation. This is why I enjoy these Saturday courses so much. My head is emptied of any thoughts from the previous busy week and of the one that follows too.


It was the first really warm spring day and in a way I was sorry to be sitting indoors, so during the break for lunch break I walked through the main market square that was swarming with tourists and eventually sat down in the sun for a coffee and a read of book published by the local paper-cutting group that I had purchased at the course.



I really had to get my nose down in the afternoon. I wanted to add some colour to my picture, something that I had not done before, and for this I needed the advice of our teacher. I had at least to get started on it before I went home.

I finished snipping my flowers and bird with about an hour left to use lovely Japanese rice paper to add colour to my image, although I had to finish off with my pastel shades of tissue paper at home on Sunday.



Our teacher and my co-students were interested in the fact that my original image had been painted by my ex- traindriver Dad and that I had now transformed it into an artwork of my own. This gave cause for some lively discussion and I look forward to telling my Dad all about it when we next meet.

I had hoped that I would get an image completed that I could use as an Easter card but I will have to do that on my own this weekend!

What I have managed to do is have some prints made of my completed paper-cut that I will give to my Dad to use as greeting cards.  



The next course will be in the autumn and I am already looking forward to it. I have plans to start a big picture! Big in paper-cutting terms will be about A4!

Notes

A video of the paper-cutting teacher in action and a peep in to her studio –


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