Mizrach

“Mizrach” is the Hebrew word for “east” and a piece of art with the word on it is meant to be placed on the eastern wall of a home. I made this papercut by folding a piece of paper in half, designing everything, cutting most of it, and then unfolding it to design and cut the non-symmetrical part. The slightly orange glow you see at the bottom is the sunlight reflecting off of my warm lined orange suit, which I was wearing last week while it was cold and I had no heat!

Here is the whole papercut.

Mediterranean Skyline

I created this simple skyline while thinking of Jerusalem, but it is not necessarily intended to actually represent that city.

See the whole thing here.
 
 

Frontal Giraffe

This quiet and calm-looking creature exists only in the absence of its spots. I had to make a technical desigion about the head. Originally, I was going to cut out the space around the head in order to create it, but then I decided I’d rather cut out the head itself…. so this piece is similar to the other giraffe papercut I made recently.

Hamsa with Fishes

This papercut I made using a half-fold method, rendering the piece truly symmetrical. The Hamsa’s (a traditional symbol of protection) designs hide two fishes (symbols of fertility and the month of Adar) and an eye (an all-seeing eye).

See the whole hamsa papercut here.

Brooklyn Bridge

This papercut was more tedious than many of the recent ones I’ve been doing of animals. Getting the gridwork cut just right, with straight lines and without cutting anything off was painstaking and slow. But it was utterly worth it! The gridwork, anchored as it is in the solid piece of visible bridge, sweeps the eyes up and out every time. Inspired by a photograph of Mary Schwalm.

See the whole papercut here.

Metal Bear continues

I’ve been toiling away at the bear since I started it in July. These days, progress is not always obvious. Last night I spent three hours working on him and got his second hind leg covered. The time before that, I covered up his head. The time before that, his first hind leg. I keep refining my technique as I go, too. For example, I sometimes, I do a quick (bad) weld of a new piece of metal to an already covered part of the bear, heat the new piece to bright orange, and then beat the hell out of it until it both acquires some character and drops its weak weld. Then I weld it properly in the place it belongs. I’ve also been using more smaller pieces, and making sure each one acquires character before its left alone. Next steps are to cover the two front legs with skin and give his face some features … and maybe he’ll get a tail. Here are some progression photos of the bear.

Approaching Tiger

I was inspired to do this papercut of a tiger (or, rather, do this papercut of the stripes of a tiger!) after seeing a photograph one of Mary Schwalm’s most recent photo weeks.

See the complete papercut here.
 

Curious Reese

This handsome hybrid is the dog companion of a fellow dog-having friend of mine. I’ve capture him in cut paper … and it looks just like him!

See the whole papercut here.
 

Froggy Hand

After seeing some of my animal papercuts, and looking through some of Mary’s photos, someone asked me to make a papercut of this frog, with his little toes all extended and ready to grip the leaf. I’m going to do a special watercolor background for it soon, too, with green and orange.

See the whole thing here.