A scherenschnitte fail

Dec 162009
 

I started the evening out lounging with a stack of comics. Somewhere along the way I got the idea in my head to practice some scherenschnitte. Eh…I picked a complicated pattern for the paper stock I have on hand. I wasn’t thinking about how I had to fold it in half to create the design. You can see what happened:

Squirrel

I wasn’t able to cut all the way through. Not only that, I didn’t even score the paper in spots so there was no way for me to tell where I should cut. I could guess, sure, but that would defeat the point of a mirrored look.

Part way through I realized what was happening and tried to compensate by pressing harder. All I did was hurt my hand, ow!, and make the root-like pieces fatter than they needed to be.

Oh well. There you have it. Pay attention to your paper stock. :P I need to get some thinner stuff now!

More random scherenschnitte

Dec 142009
 

It’s been a few months since I’ve gotten to work on any scherenschnitte.This weekend I finally got to work on some. I’m rusty.

I think I snipped a few of the flowers off in this one and the two little blobs on a bottom root are supposed to be mice. Er. Right…:

Girl and her dog

This Christmas gathering reminds me of a 50s sitcom:

Family Holiday

This one is a Mexican Papel Picado piece to celebrate the Day of the Dead. They typically use tissue paper to create many of these for banners, but I just used regular paper. I didn’t have any tissue on hand. Next time.

Skeletons

I played with silver oragami paper for this faerie:

Faerie

And lastly I cut out a bunch of werewolves and witches. I stacked them to scan them since it seemed silly to show each individually. Lost the dark purple cat though. Hmm…

WerewolvesWitches

The templates I used:

Practicing a little scherenschnitte

Sep 052009
 

Continuing in my quest to get better at scherenschnitte, I practiced at lot this past week (click the thumbnails to see the full pics):

FrogDeerBunny and MushroomsElephantBicycleLlama and MonkeyWitch and CatFrogFaerieBunny and MushroomsCowboy with FlowerVictoria DiningBicycleTreePandaUnicornsBoy and DogTreeDragonWoman in Frilly DressGypsyDragonWitch and CatFaeriePandaHarry Potter Owl

I screwed up a lot on the smaller details. Need more practice. And man, my hand is sore from all that cutting! :P

The templates I used:

I’m going to start drawing my own soon to practice on too. :)

Scherenschnitte

Aug 232009
 

Scherenschnitte means papercutting in German. I know, I could just call it papercutting but I like saying scherenschnitte. It’s harsher sounding and that’s just fun, really. :P

My mom introduced me to it, but it’s been easily more than ten years since I’ve tried it. It felt like it was time to give it a try again. :) I decided to try it out with an image I found online and with paper I had on hand. Here’s the image I used as my template:

Zwergenmusik und Drache

Pretty, isn’t it? Some details got lost when I knocked down the resoltion so be sure to check out the galley for the original and more fantastic creations too! I think I aimed too high for my first attempt after so many years. It’s a hell of a lot harder than I remember. But here’s what I ended up with:

Scherenschnitte

It’s rough. And I skipped out on some of the detailing. What I learned is that cardstock (the only paper I had on hand) is much too thick for this. And I shouldn’t be trying this when the humidity has my joints as swollen as they have been for weeks. Hand = hella pain. I also want to get a swivel head blade since that will help with the rounder edges, I think. Guess I need to hit the craft store soon, eh?

My goal is to one day be able to make stuff like this and this. Better yet, I want to eventually design my own. Steampunk owls a plenty…huzzah! :)

It’s Alive!

Dec 152006
 

Paper SkeletonThe things you can do with paper cutting are amazing.

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