Red Fire Monkey

Gung hay faat choi
The Chinese New Year officially kicked off on February 8.  2016 is year of the red fire monkey. If that doesn't beg a graphic...
Midway through my first comp and rendering, I realized that my "monkey" did not have a tail. After more research, surfing on google and Pinterest. I found that yes, chimpanzees are part of the ape family and are not monkeys; and went back to the drawing board, literally and modeled my graphic after a macaque monkey. Flare include traditional (red) cloud
and some fender spoilers for flames. Voilå, a new year's card in two variations: white background and the yellow with brocade. The front and the kanji are cut out. The design is in trifold with a greeting on the inside panel. Happy newest year.

Language of Flowers

...title of a book about a teenage girl with difficulty trusting and forming close relationships. She goes to work for a florist while still homeless and living in Golden Gate Park. Through the arrangements she creates for the florist's customers, a second and parallel narrative relates the emotional story. It's a good read and a treat for being set in San Francisco. 

The Language of Flowers: A Novel Paperback by Vanessa Diffenbaugh 

 https://www.etsy.com/listing/179522531/long-stemmed-rose-papercut-card?ref=shop_home_active_1

The newest trifold design is a long-stemmed rose. Red for romantic, passionate love; yellow for happiness and friendship(that would be my favorite); pink for affection; and white for congratulations, pride and forgiveness. These explanations are included on the back panel of the papercuts. The front panel is in full color and cut out completely; second panel backs the first and has an asymmetric pattern. Fits a legal envelope so it can be mailed (bonus)

I've had this idea in the back of my mind for awhile. Decided not to make a blue rose, which is a reference to The Glass Menagerie because it seems so sad. If you haven't read it (spoiler alert) the blue rose is a play on the word pleurisy and in fact, was inspired by Tennessee Williams' sister, Rose...so the reference comes full-circle. Read more: http://www.garydexter.blogspot.com/2009/11/161-glass-menagerie-by-tennessee.html

Turtle Tableau

 

(That word tableau is tricky. Kind of like the word once. Sometimes it just doesn't look like the letters are in the right place.) This trifold papercut card is of the hatchling turtles making their way to the ocean. They get eaten in large numbers before reaching the water. I wanted the shell and the background showing through the front panel of papercut to be different and to refer back to the actual substance of sand and carapace. Check out the wiki article on turtle shells: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_shell
Quite interesting and complicated. I used a mosaic pattern that merges with the water on the backing, i.e. second panel so that it looks like the turtle cluster just below the surface of the water or their shadow from above.

Year of the Horse 2014

 

Year of the Horse Green w/ Wood Element
https://www.etsy.com/listing/177556737/year-of-the-horse-2014-papercut-card?ref=shop_home_active_7
The revisions have gotten sorted out and will be published this week. Slight variations but I hope to reprise the horse for a "golden" hills of California POPup-foldOUt that will feature artichoke thistles. Not sure if these came with the Spanish and their cattle in the 1500s. This is an oddly Gothic-in-the-daylight plant with blooms a beautiful purple that dry and blow off the ramble of spiny leaves becoming golden puffs. These create a texture to the hillside and make it fairly impassable.
Or...of coyote. The newest iteration has more cuts and swirls in the mane. I've been making the little enclosure envelopes out of red patterned scrapbook paper. The small enclosure card and envelopes are for money gifts. This is traditional and these usually go to children in the family.
A conversation developed with another papercut artist, based in New York City.
Her etsy shop is jerise.etsy.com
https://www.etsy.com/shop/jerise?ref=l2-shopheader-name

She has organized a Year of the Horse card exchange. I'm looking forward to the exchange and wish you a happy and productive 2014

Cup of Beautiful

February 9, 2014
Year of the Horse.
last night, I was watching a local tv program that highlights the arts. It's on KVIE and airs Saturday night, 7PM. Has a ton of really good stuff and is hosted by the same guy, Rob on the Road. Here's the link http://www.kvie.org/programs/arts_entertainment/default.htm

One of the segments in the program features Olympia Dukakis, reprising her role in a theater production of Mother Courage. During the interview...at the end of the interview she quotes a poet. (forgive me but what I heard was  Locker, Lokker, Lacher???! so in search of this lovely passage, replaying the clip and googling it word for word, found it! The Spanish poet, Frederico Garcia Lorca, wrote:

...the poem, the song, the picture are drawn from the well of the people(s) and should be given back to them in a cup of beauty so that they shall know themselves.

This seems a good underpinning. My uncle said that there are a couple ways to take a walk. Some people walk the same way every day observing and interested in what has changed on that walk. Some people take a different route to see new things than they had the day before. Often for me, it's good to have a purpose, an endpoint or a circuit  then I relax along the way. Working is often like that.

Gray Whale Off the Coast

The gray whale foldout is the next iteration of the foldout that went out to Rhode Island in August.
The design is more dynamic and has those fish again and a watercolor-up-through-the -depths landscape of the lighthouse. The colors are more vivid and has more ink coverage. There are also two variations. One is of the whale moving up through the kelp and the fish. The second shows it breaching and a wave curling up out of the surface. Highly stylized but hey.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/172089290/gray-whale-breaching-popup-foldout?ref=shop_home_active_22

Gray whale migration off the coast of California

 

Whale Song, New, Newer Work

I have a new foldout in the web shop. It's titled Whale Song, which may be referencing some audio collection in my subconscious with whale calls. Sperm whales make clicking sounds that some researchers theorize is echolocution since they don't seem to have good vision. The foldout was created or rather finalized for a gallery in Rhode Island, i.e. Ambergris Gallery on Block Island. Gillian, the owner asked me if the new work...whale foldout depicted a sperm whale. The initial foldout sketches and file is of gray whales and I may drop in those images for a dual whale work. The sperm whale has such a blocky profile. Ink coverage has spread out over the surfaces.

It really helps to have a deadline. It's uncomfortable but it really helps to push the working.

Lifting questions and writing the answers

These questions came from LinkedIn discussion board for illustrators. Someone named the "illustrator dude" with a robot-thing was canvassing members to interview. The following are my answers to the interview questions. I decided to interview myself.

Interview Questions:

When did you start illustrating?
I got fascinated with the "process" of drawing. and possessed enough detachment from the results that I used a ballpoint pen. It was all very fluid.

How would you describe your illustration style?
I have a distinct line style that dominates everything I do much like individual handwriting.

Where do you find inspiration?
the natural world, some odd quirk observed, music...music is universal isn't it.

What’s your software of choice?
Photoshop

What’s your favorite focus food?
...what does "focus" mean? A food that one is fixated, have a yen for or a food that imbues a sense of contentment, calm and concentration?
Odd question. probably coffee for focus. It has a ritual aspect that is linked to so many memories.
What’s your favorite thing to draw and why?
animals

What illustrators do you look up to?
Elise Kleven. I love her storytelling and the looseness of form and color through paper collage.
There are several children's book illustrators that make my heart happy.

When do you work best, early in the morning or late at night?
mental function and energy are best in the morning though sometimes it takes me some puttering around to get really productive and always I work better with a medium-range deadline. Deadlines create the necessity to make decisions and to finish.

What are your illustration goals for the next 2 years?
develop new work that uses collage as a substrate providing richer textures and depth; create a body of work made up of limited large format papercuts; work more quickly, create and render more ideas; purchase a lasercutter for stained glass compositions and more paper art; find that sweet combination between art and product that creates a sustainable income and recognition.

Holly Peters Foldouts

where is the letter "v"

On Sunday, I went to the flea market with Dennis and Bryan. I haven't been in awhile because of my work schedule. They decided last minute (at the on ramp for 680) to go to Alameda, which is once a month, bigger, pricier and vintage.
I bought a set of letter stamps, thinking these would be perfect for mixed media....what a score...some time later while looking through the set, I discover that the lower case "v" is missing. Dammit!
This morning, in my email I find a series of messages from the Lodi artists group about what to do at their next meetup this Thursday.
"Barbara sounds like a fun project. We might even consider embracing the letter V and see how many different things we can make with this shape...Just a thought...for a challenge and a little crazy fun."-Linda

The Daily Papercut on YouTube with Foldouts

Here is a short video of me describing "foldouts" and some of my thoughts on working
YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOjikq-OwrA&feature=mh_lolz&list=HL1315318198

NelsonNunez.com created this from footage he took of me over a couple of shoots. I admit to ambivalence about being photographed and not really knowing what I wanted to communicate. Please take a look, he did a great job.

August, Autumn and Bali

The SFIGf came and went. It was a grueling show and to be honest, I do not know how productive.
It was however a lesson in wholesale for me and riding BART. Two crates and the card spinner loaded onto a dolly very nicely. And I took transit every day of the four the show was running. No parking fees, low gas use and no commuter headaches. The handmade section was relegated to a little corridor in the back, next to the cash and carry at the back of Moscone West. The backdrop to the show was the stock market plunging several hundreds of points. Frankly, I find the stock market coverage to be an exercise in manipulation, subjective speculation and a big bloody waste of everyone's time. One of my coworkers, who is just entering jc talked about watching the Colbert Report and Stewart for all of his news and that one of the guests had said, 'the stock market rests on the emotions of CEOs each day.' Great, like I need to know how 500 strangers are feeling about their morning and afternoon.

That was an aside...
I have quite a lot of follow up to do from the show. Still in the works is a conversation begun with a couple card reps. This is an ongoing discussion about retail display suggestions and price points....which actually might take me back to talking about economies, foreign manufacture and American consumer expectations.

My production process continues to be refined (no corn syrup here)
I have become more proficient at creating "stable" designs with delicate cuts and patterns.
Because of the discussion about price points and what a "card" is, I came up with a medium/invitation-sized foldout. I like this size, it has the intimacy of the enclosure and larger format views of the A2.
I will post to my shop soon.
Sunday and I am on my way to work.
ciao bella, more later,

August, return to habit or ritual and summer show

Currently prepping for the SF International Gift Show, which is this coming weekend. I should be working on collateral materials......this is a trade/wholesale show, which means that I do not have to have a lot of inventory but everything does have to be well documented.
I have not done this kind of show before. My best frame of mind seems to be to approach it as an experiment albeit with a ton of preparation....the hold up is almost always around making decisions as I really do like to let things gel a little. what I really want to be doing right now (confession) is to go work on the veiled chameleon foldout started some time ago. It's beginning to take shape and will be very colorful with a fairly good view of the little guys in habitat.

The Flea Market blog has been set aside for the time being, mainly because I am working on the weekends these days and can't attend except vicariously. And each person does notice different things.
Back to prep.
Adios for now,
Papercuts

Bones & Pearls

This papercut is 8-1/2 x 11 and velvety black. I photographed it on a textured blue glass plate, shown below. This is informed by the whole concept of mudras, which have a basis in yoga and are another way of arranging the body to focus the mind. Everyone has a different way of putting things. I remember being in a yoga class and the instructor said that the spinal cord is like a string of pearls, that together with my infatuation with marine life and the ocean is the basis for this stream-of-conscious papercut. I'm calling it "stream" because it came out of a drawing scribble and evolve into the image on the left. A spinal column framed by hands entwined with pearls, ribbons of kelp and the odd fish. I feel the seahorse is a little too cartoony so am planning to do another one and continue with a series, called Mudras.

Yes, it is Monday. That means...

yesterday was Sunday, flea market day.
The flea market is a crap shoot.
You go, you find and you buy crap.
But sometimes, especially if you approach the whole endeavor with...dare I say, "right thought", you score.
And because everyone is looking, you are all in competition with one another and kind of looking together.
Okay, yesterday. I'd decided that I was going to buy an item each week that I would incorporate into my bookmaking enterprise.
Just a word of explanation here: I mean bookmaking in the sense of book arts...okay?
and if you aren't familiar with this term, check out donnaseagergallery.com (awesome!)
So this Sunday, I had purpose.
Dennis and I paid our $1.25 entry fee (That alone is a bargain. Where else can you go for only a buck twenty five?) and headed to the right, over the drive-in movie hillocks towards a car that was parked perpendicular to the rows. D's first comment was that this guy didn't know what he was doing. As we approached, he took a box from his car, set it on the table at the front of his vendor spot and immediately a layer of people were looking, scooping and buying then he was taking another box out of his car. He never had a chance to unpack. People were buying stuff right out of the box. And a lot of these people were other vendors and regulars. Definitely something was going on. I stayed to figure it out. D took off.

A word about the flea market. There's a lot of stuff -categories and individual items that turn up on a regular basis.

There are individual items that keep repeating week after week. I saw the same waffle iron for six months, didn't see it yesterday so maybe someone finally bought it. There are themes or trends or maybe someone made a request to the Universe and I just happened to tune in. dunno.

He had fabrics, books, dishes and there was something unique about everything. The pelt was a kangaroo skin; the books were old. This is what I bought from him:
(to be continued)

Tuesday, stale popcorn and the dog

I opened an etsy shop for the dog(that's Yogi) yesterday. He is going to supply those felters with gen-U-whine Bouvier hair...or is it fur?
My friend, K8 sent me a link to a book about crafting with your cat and inside apparently, since I've only seen a photo of the book cover (and don't know a damn thing about felting) is a recipe for felting using cat's hair....or is it fur?
So far, I only have one sandwich baggy-full of doggy fluff. Usually it's like tumbleweeds everywhere -under the chairs, under the couch, in wads on the carpet or layering into the corners.
In addition, I'm thinking Sydney, one of my cats can subcontract to Yogi. He sheds almost as much and has medium-long black coat that sticks to the blankets in little tufts.

Why the reference to popcorn? We took a break and ate some.
cheers

The Art of Promise Keeping

My friend, Lindl recommended the Book Thief awhile ago.
And I read the first couple chapters but for some reason didn't finish it.
Last week, I found it in the library on CD. (I think an audiobook counts as a read.)
It is very good....and sad. It makes me sad thinking about it but it isn't a depleting sadness and it's the kind of book that you reread in your mind's eye. Beautifully and visually written.
Death is the storyteller, always mentioning the colors, the colors of things, the sky, the water, the color of Hans Huberman's eyes, silver with kindness...

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

Resurrecting My Blog and Habitat

hi! Daily Papercut is back...I stopped writing here for awhile because my focus had become our Sunday forays to the flea market. Though THAT is still interesting to me it is not the focus of this blog. The Daily Papercut's purpose is to provide a "back story" for some of my pieces and my creative process in general. In my own experience, I enjoy others' work more when I know something about it and what they're thinking about. It is not an attempt to "talk a picture," as one of my teachers once discouraged me from doing but to simply inform so you can enjoy the work more.
As for the Mercado de las Pulgas that's for another blog....link appearing soon.

I love animals and habitat. If you enjoy this aspect of my illustrations then next time you are in SF you've got to visit California Academy of Science. Wow!
I went there to recharge my creative battery this past week. It was a visual feed-very inspiring, very interesting and of course, more ideas to get to work on....rays, sea dragons, penguins, octopus, otters....habitats underwater, rainforest canopies....lots of inspiration....the natural world is so beyond anything the imagination can manufacture and it all has such an integrity in its forms.
Visit!
(note about the foldouts: these are now in a size that fits standard A7 envelope; earlier "standard" size I'm  calling  "foldout-mini" or mini. Open, the foldouts can now work as a centerpiece especially if the party or event has a theme. I am working on a set of luminarios....more on this very soon. Also new, to my etsy webshop, are large-format, limited edition paper cuts, as large as 24x18. I'm really excited about these and the ACEOs because it gets me back to my art and printmaking roots. The paper is luscious stuff, gorgeous and thick and it is, like the inks, archival....kind of like someone telling you they are baking with 100% vanilla, cocoa beans, locally sourced fruit and handmilled flours.... your mouth has to start watering...yup, good ingredients. Now on eBay as hanasales.)

October 30-newer work coming

While I am lining up shows leading up to the holidays, I'm working on some newer, promised pieces.
Reindeer and tundra....

October 8-trifoldout(forget the hyphens)

The trifoldout

What's new....a follow-up email conversation with a customer produced the trifold-out, which has the same design of the cathedral card together with imagery from smaller foldout card. The front panel is cut out, second panel combines with the first panel to create image and opens to inside panels for writing.  Mails with regular postage and is a standard envelope size(A2). I made a number of these on a linen recycled paper that came in a ream of sampler paper and after looking at it for awhile made a slightly smaller version that has a more refined feel. -will post pictures of the next iteration for a comparison.