allaboutPapercutting

ANNOUNCEMENT! Papercut shop is now open!

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Dear friend,

I am so excited to announce that my shop dedicated only to papercuts is up and running. There are 6 pieces available in it right now. Each one of them is really special in person. Plus they are already framed and ready to hang.

I hope that you enjoy them.

Have a wonderful day!

Elsita :) 

Pre-Announcement

Dear friend,

Today I just wanted to give you a little advance about something exciting that I have been putting together. And that is a new store dedicated to my original papercuts only. They will be an alternative to my gallery work, which is a bit pricier.  

Title: The Departure (about a girl that is becoming a woman)

The pieces on the new store will be framed and ready to hang and the prices will go from $99 (plus shipping & handling) to aproximately $400. My larger and more intricate papercuts are currently being sold at Couturier Gallery here in Los Angeles, CA. for prices that go from $600 to $2500.

Title: The Hand (about a woman that has decided to take her destiny in her own hands)

I think that the store will be ready to go live on September October 14, 2009. I will keep you updated on this. The 2 pieces on this post will be part of the first update. I am absolutely in love with them! The vintage inspired frames measure 7.3/4" in height by 5.3/4" in width. The price for each one of these pieces is $250. But I already have 6 different ones for $99 each, featuring Pinocchio, Little Red Riding Hood, Peter Pan, Three Little Pigs, Alice in Wonderland and Petter Rabbit.

If you're thinking about something unexpected, a special present for someone in your life, something that could be treasured for generations, then I invite you to visit my new store in September. You will find a little piece of my heart in every single papercut :)

Happy Monday!

Elsita :)

Open Head

If you're in Los Angeles, California in September of 2009, please stop by Couturier Gallery to see my show :)

Missing Thoughts

This piece will also be part of my Sept. show.

El Bosque de la Mente

One more piece for my Sept. show :)

Cycle of the Tree

And here is another finished piece for my Sept. show.

 

I still have some more pieces to share with you. I am working hard to finish everything for the show as planned :) Yay!!

El Corazon (Heart)

(This piece has been already sold out but you will be able to see at 

Couturier Gallery in Sept. 2009 - Reception on Sept. 12 from 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM)

I remember reading something like this somewhere: "The heart is the only broken instrument that works" I liked this idea because it is so true. Thinking about this idea is how I started developing the piece below titled El Corazon.

Nothing makes you grow more than the process of healing a broken heart. I lost track of how many times my heart has been broken over the years, but at this point in my life and after experiencing pain in all its colors and shapes I can say that I feel stronger than ever. 

The best part of surviving pain is that you become a braver person and your fears get reduced to the minimum, they don't rule you anymore.

 

By getting rid of your fears and your insecurities you liberate your heart so it becomes easier to connect with everything around you, but most importantly with other people and with yourself.

Believe it or not, what people fear the most is other people, we fear rejection from other people, or lack of acceptance. But what really happens is that we're projecting our own fears on other people.

 

Life is too precious to waste time and energy feeding our fears, let's them stay as small as possible and let's redirect all that energy to being positive and creative and strong.

The best time for doing that is right now that we're alive. 

And the best way to make that happen is by taking small steps, one at a time, in the direction of our dreams. Only we know what we want, what we need and what we can do and only WE can take those little necessary steps to get where we want to get.

But the journey starts in our heart. If your heart has been broken once or twice or many times just pick up your instrument and don't give up making your own music because remember:  "The heart is the only broken instrument that works" :)

Self-Contained

Hola my friend!

Today I wanted to share this papercut with you, the title is Self-Contained. This piece will be at Couturier Gallery in September of this year. Lots of ideas came to my mind when I was creating this piece. 

When my brother came to visit us we enjoyed the luxury of having long conversations. We talked about so many things. Talking with my brother is a gift to me because we have the exact same background; we come from the same mother, we grew up in the same place and on top of everything we have very similar ways to see the world. Then we both have two children: a boy and a girl and both of our boys are Autistic.

Many of the things that we talked about had to do with the ideas behind this piece, like for example: taking care of the people that we love plus taking care of ourselves while doing so. It sounds simple but this is, in my opinion, one of the greatest challenges that we face as parents of young children. The good news is that this is possible. The secret is only one: don't ever give up your dreams, don't forget about yourself because the happier you are the more you can give to all people in your life :)

self-contained definition

self·-contained (-kən tānd′)

adjective

1. keeping one's affairs to oneself; reserved
2. showing self-command or self-control
3. having all working parts, complete with motive power, in an enclosed unit: said of machinery
4. having within oneself or itself all that is necessary; self-sufficient, as a community 

Featured Artist @ www.artistaday.com Yay!!!

Yay my friend! 

I am so happy because today I am the featured artist at www.artistaday.com 

I invite you to stop over the site so you can rate my work using the little bar on the right and also I invite you to leave a little comment :)

Thank you!!!! And have a great day!

Elsita :)

Papercut Tutorial

INTRODUCING 

MY FIRST PAPERCUT PATTERNS 

ON ETSY

Dear friend,

Since I started this blog last year I have gotten several requests about offering papercut patterns on my Etsy store and today I am so excited to announce that I after many tests I finally put together the first four patterns for you to cut with your very own hands! Yay!!!! You can click on all the pictures bellow to see the larger versions.

This first series of 4 patterns includes:1 Red Riding Hood, 1 Alice in Wonderland, 1 Peter Rabbit and 1 Pinocchio. When finished, they will beautifully fit into 5"x7" frames or larger. You don't need to transfer or draw these patterns on any surface or anything like that because they are already printed on the exact professional paper that I use for my papercut pieces. This is a beautiful archival paper, 100% cotton, acid-free and the color is ivory. The pink color that you see in the pictures is the part that has been printed on the paper and that's exactly the part that we will need to cut out from the design. It couldn't get any easier :)

All you will need is a knife (I recommend an X-Acto knife with the #11 blade because they're the sharpest ones) and a self-healing cutting mat (they come in different colors and sizes). This is a great opportunity for you to give papercutting a try and right here I am going to guide you through the process of how you can cut these pieces all by yourself. These four pieces won't only make great gifts but they will also be a therapeutic activity for you. From my personal experience I can say that papercutting is one of the most relaxing things that I have done in my 38 years of life (and many more to come!)

Let's  start by taking a look at this pattern featuring Peter Rabbit, this piece will be our example. Do you see the little numbers on it? Each number is a little "island" within the general design and we are basically going to cut out these little islands one at a time, following the numerical order. The little black broken lines that you notice here are just a way to turn large spaces into islands.

Before you start working on your first pattern I HIGHLY RECOMMEND to take a piece of paper and make some cuts on it, just to let your hand "warm up" a little bit. Hold the knife in the position that is most comfortable for you. I do it in the same way that I hold a pen. Below you will find a practice sheet that I designed specially for you to exercise a little bit your hand before you start cutting your actual pieces. You can download this sheet, and print it out on regular office paper: 

Download Practice Sheet in JPG format

Download Practice Sheet in PDF format

 

Here you can see how I just cut out the island #1. You will be doing this with your knife and my number one advice is: enjoy the process and relax. Imagine that you're a surgeon and you are doing an exciting "operation" in order to bring your pattern to life :) While making the cuts, hold the paper with your other hand for more control and rotate it whenever is needed.

Here I just cut island #2, one cut at a time.

And so on...The key is to relax and enjoy the process :) 

After all the islands have been cut we will have some smaller details to work on, I didn't number them, we just need to cut them out after you're done with the islands. Here I want to tell you a little secret about how to cut the eye: instead of doing a circular cut make short straight cuts, one next to the other around the edge of the circle. In this picture you can see how I did it.

 

When you look at the piece your eye will see a nice little circle :) The little straight cuts won't be visible. You see them in this picture because this is a close up.

 

So, after the inner part of the design has been cut out we are now ready to cut the outer silhouette of the apple. And this is very easy too.

An in order to do that I illustrated another little secret for you: how to cut curves. In order to cut curved lines without accidents all you need is to do it gradually, don't try to cut a looooong line because it is very possible to go wrong and ruin the design. See the example above and notice how I made my first little cut. 

 

Then I looked through the window to see the flowers :) I took a nice breath and then I made the second little cut. Oh, I am so relaxed!

Then the third cut (I looked at the flowers again...) And before I realized I was already done cutting my Petter Rabbit piece. Yay!!!

It feels great when you see your little piece in front of you ready to frame :) You feel proud of yourself for having done the whole thing from the beginning to the end and then you feel that you can go out there in real life and do all the things that you need to do in the same way: one "cut" at a time, enjoying the process.

 

Now you understand why I haven't been able to stop making papercuts. Once you make one with the right state of mind then you will want to make more complicated ones. Stay tuned because I will be designing new ones. I am going from basic to advanced level. Yay!!!!

I wish you all my best in your papercutting adventure!!

Elsita :)

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note: If you have any question, any recommendation about what other patterns I should design...just leave me a comment here in this post :)