I See a Little Silhouetto of a Man...

This was another past assignment in my 2D Design class. The focus was on compositional balance and form. We had to think of a scary story--either a real story or one we thought of ourselves--and make papercuts based on the story.

Being me, I couldn't resist the opportunity to make a Phantom of the Opera-themed project.




I really, really enjoyed working with papercutting. It's easy, it's fun, and the end result looks great.

Quicktips for Papercutting

• You're going to need:
• An exacto-knife or artist's scalpel. Scissors will not help you here.
• Glue stick or rubber cement. Don't use tape, it peels and and you might lose an important piece of your picture if the tape falls off.*
•  Black construction paper [Really, you can use any color that will show up against the background]
• Bristol board, printer paper, cardstock, anything you want to use as a background color. If you use black construction paper, a white background works best.

*Spoken from experience with a different project. There was a piece that really wasn't meant to be attached to the project at all, which I taped down so I could get it to class safely. It was windy out and that piece came dangerously close to being swept into rush-hour traffic.

Plan out what you want your image to look like before you start cutting. Decide whether you want the image to be mostly the foreground or background color, or a balance between the two.

These are three basic ways of representing a subject with papercut--each has its own benefits, depending on what you're trying to communicate with a picture.



Disregard that artistic handwriting of mine.

-Integrated silhouette involves representing the same subject both with the foreground and background colors, balancing them to make the image clear.
-Vignette is a simple silhouette, portraying the subject with no details aside from the outline.
-Ambiguity is similar to, but not exactly like integrated--with integrated silhouette, both colors are balanced to form equal parts of the subject. Ambiguity is designed to make it unclear whether the focus is on the foreground or background color.

Once you've got your picture planned out, either draw it on your foreground paper or use tracing paper to copy your plan over. Take your time cutting any small details.

Once you have the whole thing cut out, arrange the pieces on the background paper and glue them on. Make sure the pieces are glued down flat, with no wrinkles or bubbles of glue underneath, and the edges are attached firmly. Give it a little time to dry before displaying--it sounds like a no-brainer, but if you don't wait the pieces could slip a bit and mess up the composition of the piece, not to mention leave glue streaks.

If you think this sounds fun, go give it a try. You most likely have everything you need already! And be careful not to give yourself a papercut! =P

Daisy
[Apologies to Queen for the post title.]