Horsing around

A couple more papercuts for your delectation. Both horses, both backed on hand painted papers. I should really stop all this 'horsing around' and write a few letters I have been putting off.

Pingu & Co.

Having just spent a week and a half in bed with a mystery illness there has not been much going on in the realms of artiness. I have been trying to catch up with a few random ideas that have been floating around in my head for a while though.

There is a growing trend on internet craft sites for making decorative paper arches. The arches come in a variety of sizes, from long and thin to small a squat and every other variation in between. Some are vintage, some are modern. I happened to come across this phenomenon a few weeks ago and thought I would have a go myself. My first attempt is small in size and Medieval themed, including one of those ubiquitous Medieval birds. It all adds a bit of variety.

Inspired by the arch theme I also made an architecture themed ATC. I love the randomness of using embossing powder with a glue stick. I got some great bubbles in the bottom left corner.

I also took another route in my papercutting adventure. My penguin is made up of layers of cut paper - a full bottom white layer, a black layer cut to the shape of the black on the penguin's body and an inlaid piece of hand painted paper for the yellows. I am quite pleased with the result and have been trying to come up with some other ideas that might work in a similar way.

Finally, my little bee heart. I don't actually like hearty, romantic themed crafts but I had some chipboard heart shapes that I was given and have been trying to use them up. The bee was a painting I did ages ago. It dawned on me that I can scan my art work, print it out and use it as images for my collages. The only trouble was that it was too fiddly to cut round the legs so I cut them off and redrew them once I had stuck the image down.

Papercuts and washers

I managed to take some photos of the washers and mosaic tile I mentioned yeasterday. Still not wonderful but better. They are ideal for use on cards, ATCs or larger pieces of art. The washers were painted with alcohol inks, rubbed on an embossing pad, sprinkled in odd places with copper detail embossing powder then with a light sprinkling of UTEE. It gives a colourful and water splashed effect.

The tile was covered in glue and dabbed with pearl ex in various colours. One dry I added a little Lumier paint in gold - just patted on with my finger and left to dry. Then came a coating of Ranger crackle accents.

More papercuts too - a framed 3D piece inspired by the work of Helen Musselwhite and a smaller 3D piece of a fox. The fox has been sitting around for weeks waiting for something suitable. At least he has some landscape to run around in now.

Evening sky papercuts

I found a few of my own design papercuts and thought I would upload them. Instead of the traditional pale background I used an alcohol ink background. Nice and zingy but maybe a bit too much. Slightly diluted inks might have been a more subtle idea.

A cut on the wild side

Having now sorted out my internet security problems - it took two hours 20 mins to update my anti virus and my internet connection cuts out after two hours - I can update my blog without wondering if something untoward is going to shoot down the phone line.

I have been working on some papercuts for greetings cards recently. This is one of them - a scene made up of designs by Ellen Brown. I have a few others but have not go around to scanning them yet. There are so many ideas going round in my head right now and finding the time to get them all done seems to be getting more and more difficult. I think I need to send my brain on holiday to Transylvania for the weekend. Why Transylvania? It's nearly Halloween and I have always fancied going to Transylvania.

My new Open University course materials arrived the other day - Perspectives on Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo is known as the ultimate Renaissance man but it seems that he was not all that different from other artist/craftsmen of his day. Looks like there is plenty more info to absorb. Although the course doesn't officially start until next week I am already on week two of the study book. There is just no holding me back when there is something new to learn.