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?!
Today’s design is number 698 in the book. You would think this would be a very easy design to choose a name for, but there are so many variations of leaves in the book and I can’t call them all “Leaf” because that would get confusing! But as far as I know I haven’t actually called any of them “Leaf Papercut” yet. So this one wins.
And a very nice leaf it is, too. I enjoyed cutting this one. It was quite straightforward and yet provided some challenges in terms of cutting the fine veins.
Closer up:
Therefore this design falls into the 5-ish percent of designs in the book that I can immediately see myself using again in future projects.
Normally I would note here what audiobook or podcast I’ve been listening to today, but today’s background soundtrack has been Rob preparing a meal that may or may not turn out to be fatal when eaten. So this might be my epitaph. Good luck, future me!
He bought four reduced-price red mullet fish a couple of weeks ago on a whim, and put them straight in the freezer (they had already reached their sell-by date). And today he’s defrosted them only to discover that red mullet are usually sold whole, so they still had their guts inside them (I’ve been doing a bit of research here and here, just to double-check whether I’m likely to die of fish poisoning. Just in case you’re wondering, the very clear advice is that whole fish should NOT be frozen without gutting and cleaning them first.)
*** UPDATE ***
I’m not dead. The fish was OK, in the end. But it still doesn’t get past my long-held theory that “fish equals faff” (what with all of the gutting and de-scaling and then picking bones out while eating it). It was accompanied by shallots and bacon-that-Rob-had-accidentally-dropped-on-the-floor-while-it-was-raw, and he washed the meal down with a bottle of wine that we’ve had for at least eight years and neither of us knew where it came from. It was officially “white” wine but was actually browny-yellow. Yuuuum. Still, it made the perfect accompaniment to the equally dodgy food.
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.
This week’s design is number 697 in the book. As I’ve mentioned before, the designs are just given numbers in the book and not names, so I’ve had to come up with my own names for them. I had no idea what to call this one. It’s got a sort of central stylised flower which isn’t immediately recognisable to me. I did try to get some clues from the other plants in the design, but they weren’t obvious either. Maybe they’re corn stalks? (Corn as in wheat, not as in sweetcorn. The definition of “corn” depends on whether you use UK/US English.)
So all I could think of was calling it “Wildflower Meadow”. As soon as I thought of that name, I noticed what a funny word “wildflower” is. It’s got four consonants in a row (LDFL). Surely there can’t be many words in English that have four consonants all mashed together? (I’m not counting words with “Y” in them, by the way (e.g. “hymn”, or “gypsy”)) Now I’m trying to think of other examples…
“Hatchback”. “Pitchfork”. Oh – maybe there are more than I thought!
Closer up:
Either I’m getting better at papercutting, or I’m getting better at forgiving myself for the little mistakes that I make – or maybe a bit of both. But for whatever reason, I find this design quite pleasing.
Having said that, I’m not sure I would use it as part of a ‘real life’ composition. All the same, I’m glad to have added it to my sketchbook full of papercuts. I’ve got a growing collection of these ‘samplers’ now, and I’m actually starting to see some improvement and progression overall. Which is a good thing, because that was the whole purpose of this “Cutting all 922 designs from the book” exercise in the first place.
I used to comment here about what I’d been watching or listening to in the background while I made the actual papercut. But because there’s been a big gap between cutting them and documenting them, I’ve forgotten what I was listening to when I cut most of them. Maybe I’ll carry on noting what I’m listening to, but from today instead of the date that I cut the design.
…In which case, today I’ve been listening to the “Writing Excuses” podcast. I deliberately didn’t listen to it for a few months this year, just so I could binge-listen to it later. And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing today. Series 14 has had some really useful writing advice in it.
Apart from that, I’ve been giving myself a bit of a day off. I’ve been so busy with paperwork and admin and life for the last few months that I’ve run out of steam. Catching up with my papercutting adventure has been very therapeutic.
Wow. A lot has happened since I last updated this blog thing. 2020 just keeps on giving. I managed to carry on the papercutting project through Lockdown and beyond – it was the only thing keeping me sane(ish)! But unfortunately a lot of life stuff then started happening at the same time. So updating the blog dropped a looooong way down my to-do list.
Some of the exciting events included:
Husband put on furlough from (travel-related) job
Husband losing his (travel-related) job of 18 years
Husband’s 87-year-old mother having major health problems but not being able to get help for her because the problems weren’t Covid-related. (Apparently it’s OK for people in the UK to die of cancer or infections or neglect or anything else, just as long as they don’t get Covid.)
Husband getting a new job
Having to move and sell our house
Having to find and buy a new house
Needing to find somewhere safer for mother-in-law to live
Needing to sell mother-in-law’s flat
Death of my lovely PhD supervisor
Replacement lovely PhD supervisor going on maternity leave
Me failing a crucial module of the PhD, so having to switch to part-time and start the whole module again
Five months later…
… and the world is still looking completely insane. But at least my own little corner of it is starting to calm down a tiny bit, this week. So in between filling in the paperwork for buying and selling houses and doing 500-mile round trips to visit the M-I-L, I’m going to try to carry on recording the results of the ongoing papercutting project. (I’m trying to work my way through all of the designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books. I love papercutting and it has provided me with much-needed occupational therapy this year, and has helped my mental health.)
But now because of the 5-month break since my last post I’m not sure if I should be on “Day 35” or if I should start again or even dump the whole numbering system. Maybe I’ll just carry on with the day-numbering system (because I was still cutting the pieces during those days, even though I wasn’t putting them on social media). And I’ll definitely carry on with the actual design numbers as they are mentioned in the book…
For the majority of these designs I think, “I enjoyed cutting this design, but I’m not sure I’d ever use it in another artwork”. But this one is different. I like the simple leafy design, and because it uses repeating elements it can be made as long or as short as necessary, just by adding or removing leaves from the design.
And again for most of the designs, I think “Aargh – the mistakes are jumping right out at me and taking my attention.” But I’m actually quite pleased with this one.
“Flower and Leaf Border” is from the papercutting project that I’ve been doing for the last few years (trying to work my way through all of the designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books.) But for the period of Covid19 Lockdown, I’ve put the project into overdrive and have decided to adapt and cut 100 designs in 100 days.
Today’s design is number #684 in the book.
It’s another ‘inverted’ design, where I’ve cut holes out of white paper, instead of cutting a silhouette shape out of black paper. So here the black parts of the design are just parts of a black notebook cover that are showing through the holes in the white paper. If I’d put the white paper on top of my hand, then the flowers and leaves would be showing through as hand-coloured.
Closer up:
Here is a close-up of the top section of the design…
…and here is a close-up of the bottom section:
I’m never really as keen on these negative papercuts as I am on the positive ones. Maybe I should work harder on adapting the designs so that they can be created in a positive silhouette form. However, I’m not sure how I could do that effectively with the flower parts of this design. The little circles would have to be much bigger, I think, and would definitely all need to be linked together somehow.
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…
This “Leafy triangle” cut is from a papercutting project that I’ve extended for the 2020 Covid19 Lockdown, where I’m trying to adapt and cut 100 designs in 100 days from the book “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments“, by Dover Books.)
Today’s design is number #681 in the book. It appears that I am definitely running out of inspiration with the titles of these designs, and so that’s why this one has ended up being called “Leafy triangle”
Closer up:
I like this design. It’s simple but effective. And it was also quite a challenge to cut, with its curvy shapes everywhere.
This one definitely ‘speaks’ to me, and I can see myself using it in a future project. Maybe I could adapt it even further, and hide some little initial letters (or even whole words) in the swirls. I think it would be really nice as part of a wedding papercut or standalone project. It would also make a lovely border for another ‘main’ papercut, if I repeated the design and made some linking sections between the triangles. It might also look good as a pattern cut out of a bigger silhouette shape – e.g. an animal.
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.
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”.
