snip, slice, cut, peal, repeat.

This week has been so much fun since my workshop at the Pyramid Atlantic Studios in paper cut stencil making also called a Scherenschnitte which is very particular to they type of art craft making. I know it looks hard to say but "sharon sh-knit-ta" is a phonetic approximation of how it sounds with my American English... Anyway how ever you pronounce it the point is it is fun.

diamonds, spades, clubs and heart 3x22" black paper

Today after some shopping I spent the afternoon enduring this little heat wave that blew into DC sitting by the AC drawing then cutting a third scherenschnitte motif. I was thinking about my brother in law Franz Poti who arranged for all the family ladies to meet him and my sister Jenny, in Las Vegas for the beginning of a week long trip to Utah time shares. He loves to gamble and this past weekend was his 50th Birthday so he got to gamble and have fun in Las Vegas. Cards came to mind so I offer this little design with him and Bridge mistress Mildred Cunningham in mind.

 Keith took my photo while I was cutting the final few bits out of my first scherenschnitte last Friday evening after the workshop. I love seeing how "into it" I was I didn't even notice I was getting my portrait made.  Notice, I forgot to take off my orange name tag? Today that ice cold glass of water looks so delicious. Thanks for catching me shinning so brightly, Keith.

Frederick cutting his first scherenschnitte 5-20-2011

I did a second paper cut this week which is more ambitious than my first heart design. I was thinking about my neighbor's two robins nesting in his front and back yard. Dan and Peter were posting daily photos on face book as the little blue eggs appeared, then hatched and eventually flew away. So this one is dedicated to all the bird lovers who love to watch these creatures raise their young in our gardens. I am still waiting on the house wren to settle into one of our bird houses and make some babies!

 chicks in a tree, worms are on the way

The last thing I have to offer today is a bit of red hot orange! My native Turk's cap species lilies began to bloom and I couldn't resist drawing them this morning while in the garden for my daily sketch. The fastest way to share the sketch and the flowers is with a couple photos of them together so watch for more images when I get this scanned. 

watercolor and pen sketch of lily in our garden

orange Turk's cap lilies

membership's perks

 my paper cut scherenschnitte design with shadows

This past evening I spent a couple hours at Pyramid Atlantic Studios making, what in German is called, a scherenschnitte with black paper, scissors and a sharp Exacto knife on a cutting mat. Silhouette is something I have been fascinated by for many years and in college I did some of my work by tracing the shadows from my hanging plants cast on my small bedroom wall from the two or three street lights that came in the window. I kept coming back to shadows and the flat design that reads so easily as a portrait or a story motif in my art works. The woodcuts I have done are a sort of silhouette design with lots of highlight details. So when the members of Pyramid Atlantic Studios offered a free members workshop in German scherenschnitte on Friday night I jumped at the chance to give it a try. This art is associated with the early German immigrants who settled mostly in Pennsylvania who brought it with them from their homelands. We see it as "Pennsylvania Deutsch" style in folk art of the 17-19th centuries early American.
I haven't been doing much print making this year but this and the paper bead workshop offered a few months ago were great reminders that there are so many things to do at the Pyramid Atlantic studios with paper and prints. It was a great fun evening with about 15 other members of various degrees of drawing skills. We had a creative director Gretchen Schermerhorn and her young and lovely German intern Elena Djossou to lead us along and give inspiration and show us the how it's done. I worked from an old design, drawing my own version and then carefully cutting it out folded in half to get the mirror effect on my little heart with birds and bunnies. Now I want to try something more original. Crows in a tree perhaps? Thanks to my membership at Pyramid I have new inspiration....

 with special effects from iPhotobooth

paper cut design flat black and white.