The mystery of the Orient; subtle beauty, cherry blossoms, elegance and gracefulness, Ninja warriors, egg rolls, etc. Chinese papercutting has always been an art form that required creativity, skill and experience. An art form that I greatly admired. The Japanese are traditionally known for their family crests.
I wanted to try and combine the skill and techniques of the Oriental papercut arts in a way that would pay tribute to this wonderful art form and yet make it a little bit mine. The geisha was a subject I felt I could do well and change it a bit to make it both interesting and mysterious. Thus, my Oriental Shadow Maidens. A little bit ninja warrior and a lot of beauty and elegance.
The execution of the papercut was pretty straightforward. The standard tools,e-xacto knives, black paper, background papers and lots of patience, were used. The subject matter was taken from a wealth of information I have in my resource library. Many of the ideas and pictures were taken from copyright free material from Dover Publications and information that was googled on the internet. (Thank heaven for the internet because sometimes the ideas do not flow from the brain when we would like them to.) The papercut went slowly because of the detail involved but mainly because after each area was cut, carefully planning was needed. First to make sure that the pieces would not fall out of the papercut and second to plan on the appropriate background paper. When all was said and done and after too many hours of cutting, the first Shadow Maiden was completed. This I hope will be an ongoing series as long as I do not run out of subject material and the brain continues to function.
I hope that you like my new creation and if you can find the time, please comment and let me know what you think. There are additional Shadow Maidens on my flickr site if you would like to view them. In the meantime, please have a great day and I will talk to you soon. Happy cutting.
family crests.
The papercut went slowly because of the detail involved but mainly because after each area was cut, carefully planning was needed. First to make sure that the pieces would not fall out of the papercut and second to plan on the appropriate background paper. When all was said and done and after too many hours of cutting, the first Shadow Maiden was completed. This I hope will be an ongoing series as long as I do not run out of subject material and the brain continues to function.