Rabbits and mice and bugs, oh my!

So this is my first blog update in about 3 months! My family and I were sadly given some devastating news at the end of January regarding a close friend of ours whom we have known for a number of years; a genuinely wonderful lady who I considered to be the central figure in my extended family. The world truly is a far darker place without her. She naturally possessed all the positive attributes most people strive to have, and the fact that she has been taken so prematurely is unfathomable. She is so missed. So it goes without saying that my art has taken a backseat over the past couple of months, but recently I have decided to get back into the swing of things.

Following the papercut I created for my work colleague at Christmas, I've had quite a few people express their interest in commission pieces! This is a cut I did for a friend of mine, which she wanted to pass down through the family. I thought the foliage in my previous papercut worked really well to frame the typography but I didn't want this one to be too similar and resemble a 'repeat', so I wanted to try something a bit different. Working with the surname 'Warren' my mum suggested incorporating a rabbit into the design, which inspired the woodland theme.

This one was a real challenge to design (ensuring it came out as one whole stencil) but I was really happy with how it turned out, and more importantly my friend was thrilled with the design! I'm fairly certain there will be more animal-inspired papercuts from me in the future!

'A Midsummer Night's Dream' prints

For my Negotiated Unit I selected 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' as my literary source of inspiration. I decided to focus on its strong theme of 'nature' to produce a set of three prints, to be sold as part of a limited edition, promotional pack for a re-release of the play. The script is in no short supply of quotations for which I could have chosen for these prints, however I decided upon the quote 'Out of this wood, do not desire to go' spoken by Titania (Queen of the Fairies) in Act 3, Scene 1.

To add depth to the prints, both visually and symbolically, I used my own photographs as backdrops for the printed typography. I took photos of woodland and flowers mentioned within the play, then played with the brightness/colours/opacity of the images using Photoshop so as they wouldn't distract attention from the quotation. I then lino printed directly on to these print outs. I really love the subtlety of the photographic background and its definitely a technique that I'll be exploring in my future work!