I have gone back so some of my roots though in one of my recent projects. When I started papercutting, years ago, my main source of inspiration was the East African art movement, Tinga Tinga and peacocks were one of my preferred subjects. I haven't done any in a while and in this I wanted to do a very traditional papercutting piece, in white.
I started out with a sketch in my sketchbook to plan it out. This was then transferred to white cartridge paper and then I started the cutting process. After a lot of the maps and more graphic work I have done recently this is one of the more organic and detailed pieces I have done in a while..which was a fun challenge.
This next bit was fun. I wanted to test out different options for the background for the final papercut - I didn't even want to wait until I was done with the cutting. I was torn about the choices. My boyfriend was really keen on the first one, the raspberry. Whereas I was keen on the one below, the dark purple, which I thought showed up the design better with contrast...
It was a tough choice, and annoyingly, the wretched winter gloom hasn't done the pictures any favours - what would you vote for?
Final choice to follow...I have further plans for the finished piece so stay tuned. In the meantime, here is the final, unmounted piece:
When I told my Mum I was doing a white peacock she reminded me of an albino peacock we met on a family trip in the 1980's to Mt Kenya Safari Club. Apparently our family turned up with me, aged 3 or something only to find out that there was no kids allowed!
We were hours away from home in Nairobi and my parents made a good enough case that I was such a well behaved child that no one would complain - which worked.
I remember pictures of me and this white peacock that my parents took in the grounds of the hotel.
It's nice to think that maybe that was a subconscious inspiration for this piece (Hi Mum!)
No comments:
Post a Comment