So I have blogged about a few
papercuts before, part of my soft spot for them comes from the books I read as a child, illustrated with silhouettes by
Jan Pienkowski and shadow puppet theatre films that seemed to be a bit of a thing in the 80s. That and the obsessive cutting of snowflakes and chains of paper girls and boys holding hands.
I have been sketching a lot more recently and was practicing my high contrast black and white shadow drawing, when I realised, these might look rather good as papercuts. Well as it transpires there are a lot of bloody brilliant artists doing this already, not that it will stop me, and I came across even more wonderful artists, I'd like to share some of these here.
Rob Ryan - If found Rob's work a few years ago, a solar plate friend of mine, Sarah, popped into Atelier Rose and Gray, when they had a gallery in my local town Ramsbottom. In the window was this huge red and white print. I had seen it for a couple of weeks each time I sat at the traffic lights. Big, bold, sentimental and in my favourite colour (if I can't have black). Sarah decided she would have it as an engagement gift. Money well spent, it looks amazing above her sideboard. I was introduced to the work of Rob.
Emily Hogarth - I love Emily. Not in the least because she is a bloody brilliant artists, but she has a range of equally bloody brilliant books about papercutting. Buy them, buy them all. She produces some very clever, understated, landscapes, I envy such ability to convey a view with such simplicity. She also makes very cute animal cuts and commerirative pieces too.
Paper Panda - aka Louise Firchau. Possibly the neatest cutter I have seen so far, the tiniest, weeniest cuts. Actually, "like' her on
facebook, she is lovely, warm, honest and engaging and you get a great insight to her who process from sketch to frame. She does a very cute cartoon style line, text based pieces and story books. My favourites are the Alice in Wonderland.
I'll be sharing more along the way but can in the meantime, point you to,
Suzy Taylor,
Hina Aoyama,
Nahoko Kojima,
Heather Moore, Nicky McClure. Really there are hundreds more but I promised myself I'd clock off at 21:30, there is a Toblerone with my name on it... if I were called Toblerone.
