This is a little paper-cut I did for Dianne's birthday card recently. I did a lot of paper cutting at art school but haven't worked on many recently. Some may recall my appreciation for Rob Ryan's work which I talked about a few months back - amazing! He creates very intricate designs and often includes text in his work.
This little piece was fairly quick to make as I kept the design quite simple. Here's how I make these paper cuts (this is a bit larger than A5.)
1. Draw a design onto paper or tracing paper.
2. Tape the drawing to a window or put it on a light box.
3. Tape a sheet of paper (the one you will cut) over the drawing and lightly trace your original drawing onto the clean paper. Do not use a heavy piece of paper, use normal or light weight paper - even tissue paper will work.
4. Use a craft knife (Xacto) knife to cut out the design. Experiment with different types of blades. Have plenty of blades available. As soon as you begin pressing harder to cut the paper, change blades. Pushing hard to cut the paper usually results in: rumpling the paper, a jagged edge or a cut finger. Change blades often!
5. Using spray glue, lightly spray the back of the cut out image and carefully position it onto a piece of card stock.
Tip: spray glue can be really nasty stuff, try and find one of the newer, water-based varieties like Spray Craft Adhesive from Gluestore.com.
Give it a try, the results can be really clean and satisfying.
nice guess I have to try it by the way I'm Rob Ryan's fan
Posted by: Kay | February 07, 2008 at 10:18 PM