Tag: art nouveau style

Spear Flower #699

“Spear Flower” is from an ongoing papercutting project that I’ve been doing. (Basically I’m trying to work my way through all of the designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books.)

Today’s design is number 699 in the book. As usual I’ve had some difficulty coming up with a descriptive-but-unique name for the design. Again, I couldn’t just call it “Flower” because there are a lot of flower designs in the book that I’m working from. And I don’t recognise the flower itself. So I’ve named it after the things that look like spears that are shooting out from it.

Closer up:

I enjoyed cutting this particular design. It might look simple but it was really tricky to keep very thin lines of the ‘spears’, and to cut the curved shapes of the petals. I doubt I’ll be using this design in any further projects, but as always I will keep it in my sketchbook as a record of my papercutting progress.

While updating this post I’ve been listening to The Bestseller Experiment podcast. Wow – they have achieved a LOT in four years. I wonder if I’ll have finished my papercutting project in four years from now?!

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Asymmetric Flower #696

I’m continuing the ongoing papercutting project that I’ve been doing. (Trying to work my way through all of the designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books.) “Asymmetric Flower” is number 696 in the book.

Having noted that yesterday’s design was unusual because it contained four consonants in a row, this one does as well! It definitely wasn’t deliberate, either. I could have called it “Wonky Flower”, but that would suggest that it was asymmetrical by accident, when actually it’s part of the design.

Closer up:

Initially it looks like I’ve accidentally cut off the outer petal things and have then tried to just style it out. But if you look at the two inner petal things, the left one is small and the right one is large (etc). So trust me – this is how the design was meant to look!

It’s so asymmetrical that it makes me uncomfortable to look at for too long, for some reason. I feel a fairly strong compulsion to create a mirror image version of it. That way I can (1) regain the feeling of balance, and (2) prove that it’s not me making mistakes in the cutting – it really is designed like that.

In terms of cutting it was actually a fairly quick one, and felt like a satisfying mixture of curvy lines with fiddly inner shapes. So I could actually see myself using this design again, and not just for the OCD-type ‘closure’ compulsion that I would gain from it 🙂

Today I’m still listening to the Writing Excuses podcast. Love it.

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Tiny Flower Papercut

This “Tiny Flower” papercut is from an ongoing papercutting project that I’ve been doing (trying to adapt and cut 100 designs in 100 days, inspired by the images in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books.)

Day 33 – a third of the way through my 100-day project! Wow – those 33 days went quickly. This design is number #682 in the book. (The images don’t have titles in the book, so I have to come up with names for them myself.)

Closer up:

Only after I’d cut this one did I realise that it actually appears somewhere else in the book as part of a bigger design. So I’d already cut it at least once before, and therefore this was a waste of time!

Having a duplicate design was already annoying from another point of view, as well, because it means that there aren’t 922 designs in the book “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” after all. I feel a bit cheated! When I looked carefully through the designs in the book I also spotted this exact same flower in about FOUR of the images.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the ‘922’ designs are more like 900 designs. I’ll try to work it out properly one day…

Any comments? You can chip in via the comments page, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.

Duck Flower

This is from an ongoing papercutting project that I’ve been doing (working my way through designs from the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books.) Today’s design is number #677 in the book. OK, I know there’s no such thing (or at least I think there’s no such thing) as a ‘duck flower’, but I couldn’t think of anything else to call it, and to me it looks like it’s got a beak or a duck’s bill and is just about to eat something:

Closer up:

This is another ‘negative’ cutting, where instead of cutting the design from black paper, I’ve cut the shapes out of white paper and so the black is just the colour of the thing that the white piece of paper is resting on. If I’d rested the piece on some blue paper then it would be a blue ‘beak’ instead.”

It’s not too bad, in terms of skills. Considering how small it is, I’m quite pleased with the way the tiny rounded shapes turned out.

Would I use this design again in future in a ‘real’ project? Probably not. I can’t really see any circumstances under which I would need a flower with a beak.

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Cornflower Papercut

This is from an ongoing papercutting project where I’ve been working my way through designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books. Today’s design is number #694 in the book. I know it’s not a cornflower! But it looks like a cross between a corn on the cob and a flower, so that’s why I’ve given it the title “Cornflower”.

Closer up:

See: corncob!

Can you come up with a better name for it? You can chip in via the comments page, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.