Research
Look at a range of illustrators and artists that use paper as a medium rather than just a surface within their work. How have they used paper and what processes have they put it through?
So I googled paper artists just to see what came up, and I found an article by Brwnpaperbag.com on 10 inspirational paper artists.
The first one I was drawn too was Eugenia Zoloto, Eugenia is a paper cut artist, collage artist and painter, she comes from Kyiv in Ukraine. Her artwork is very fine, very detailed, and she is very talented, her cut out art is made using a paper knife, and she hand cuts the paper into the shapes, art pieces and clothes. Eugenia works on really large pieces as well as smaller pieces, her work takes a long time to make, and she costs her work accordingly by how many hours she has spent on it. She sells her work through Etsy, as well as commissions for one off pieces, and has made items for advertising for large companies. Eugenia uses a drawing as a template that she has designed, then uses large sheets of fairly stiff, thick card to cut into.
Kelly Pousette was the second artist I looked at, I was drawn to her paper craft because of the illustrative and story telling of the pieces. Kelly is from Canada and is an illustrator and paper cutter, she makes 3D layered art with her painted illustrations and cut papers. Kelly creates scenes and stories through her work, they are very cute and sweet and would appeal to children, they are very delicate and intricate and have a folklore feel to them.
Kelly paints and illustrates a few scenes she is going to layer, then she builds up the layers like a frame, then starts to cut out and cut into them to create a cameo style piece, sometimes she uses many of these scenes side by side to create a visual story as you go along.
Then I chose to look at Quilling artists, I used to do quilling when I was young and loved the creativity of it, it will be interesting to see how far it’s come and if it has modernised at a all!?
Ceres Lau is a paper quiller, she comes from Sarawak in Borneo, and studied graphic design.
Ceres now works on commissions and works in all types of paper, she cuts them to create art works and sculptures, mostly in small formats. Her quilling is vibrant and lively and definitely has a modern edge with the colours she chooses and the styles she creates. I have noticed from this picture a few new practises for quilling which I never did when I was young, and that’s simply to put a piece of cut paper in like a rainbow shape, to create different shapes. When I did quilling the paper was curled into circles only and that was the only shape you worked with, you could pinch one end to create a tear drop, or both ends for an eye shape, but on the whole it was only those shapes we used.
Ceres uses thin strips of paper which are like ribbons it comes in different millimetres, then you use a quilling tool to wrap the paper around the tool, then you usually stick the end with PVA glue to stop it unravelling. You then stick that onto a piece of card to make a design, then build it up from there.
I liked Kelly Pousette’s work the best, it was something I hadn’t seen in that format before, and loved the cuteness and storytelling of the art. I think they would make great visual books for children, and think little girls would just love them. I liked her illustration style too and the folklore forest feel of the piece in the picture. I looked at Kellys instagram profile, and all her work has that folklore feel to it, which was lovely to see. I also noticed she had actually illustrated a book for children, using her illustrated layered frames for each page.
Exercise 4.6 Paper circus
The circus is coming to town, create a poster advertising what’s on, where and when using only paper. Use coloured paper, or collage, cutting and layering, folding or sculpting.
Photograph the final piece, reflect on the limitation of only being able to use one material, how has it affected you creatively, was it a help or hindrance?
I started by researching some vintage circus posters to come up with some ideas.
Research
found some images on Pinterest of vintage circus posters, but most were copy’s of the originals, but they gave me ideas of colours, motifs, design, and what I should or could include, as well as typography fonts and styles.
This poster was actually from Ikea, but it is based on a original poster, this gave me the ideas for colours, the candy stripe red, and the pale blue, also the tent motif, and the typography font was typical of vintage posters.
This poster looked very vintage with its aged feel, this gave me the idea for characters, the strong man, the bearded lady, the fire breather and the sword swallower.
Most of the vintage posters were from the 1920’s, but this one has some art nouveau styling to it with the flows and curls and organic feel. I liked the frame design of this poster and focusing on one element of the circus show, the amazing tattooed beauty.
Again you can see here the red candy stripe, I liked the wording of this poster, not particularly the typography or font, just the actual words, the way it describes the show and the characters in it.
I then created a Pinterest board of some paper circus art work, which reiterated the colours and designs seen above, it helped to get ideas of what I could do.
Cut out characters and animals
use patterned or collaged paper
Make a 3D model
Hand things from wires
decoupage motifs
Keywords
Candy stripe, elephant, trapeze, ring master, tent, paper, collage, hanging, layering, pale blue, black and white, red, bunting, balls.
Design
I then created a few thumbnail ideas, just simple designs to start with that I could build upon.The first one was a paper tent made like a frame, then a scene in the window in the middle, maybe like the ring master.
The second was an elephant balancing on a large ball.
The third a decorative frame with a hanging trapeze artist and the ring master.
The forth was just some typography idea.
The fifth was a seal balancing on a ball, a similar idea to the elephant.
The the sixth the strong man, with some heavy weights.
I’m thinking along the lines of making the characters or motifs out of paper then layering them, or having some hanging, and using collaged paper for the colour and patterns.
Art work
I started by cutting out the shape of a tent using a cutting knife and board, then added in some pencil details so I could colour the tent in, I was thinking of using this as a frame.
I decided to use Posca pens to colour in the tent, I decided against using collage in this way, as I thought about the layering in another way. Like Kelly Pousette the illustrator I looked at above in the research question.
I then started on some characters so I had decided upon a trapeze artist and a strong man, I used a pencil to create a outline, then cut this out again using a cutting mat and knife.
I then drew the characters so I could stick these onto the cutouts.
Then layered these elements onto my table so I could get a photograph set up. I had to use two glasses to run some string along, so my trapeze artist could hang in the right position in the frame. The strong man was a bit more tricky as I had to somehow stick him to the table, without being too wonky! Also it was hard to get a white background for the photograph, but I thought I could use Photoshop afterworlds to take out anything that I don’t want in the shot, and also add some things ,like a background.
I tried a few different angles, but I think these two are the best.
I then put the photo through Photoshop and played around with different backgrounds, like purple curtains, and wooden flooring, but I found that these distracted from the characters, and was quite busy, so I kept it plain and simple. I will add some shading and texture in instead.
I then started to think about how to make the photograph into a poster, so I looked back at the research I had done, and took the elements from a few of those to start building it up. I scanned it into Procreate so I could start adding the shadows and details, as well as the background for the poster. I went back to my original idea of the pale blue colour and decided this would make a good background colour, and contrast with the photograph so its eye-catching and pops!
I then went further and used the sun beam style effect for the background, like the design in the Ikea poster and Tattoo lady poster. I trialled out some typography too, something simple yet in the same era as the CIRCUS font I used on the actual tent in the photograph.
I played around with the placement of the words and fonts, and finally decided upon this set up.
I then was not sure about it, I felt it lacked a certain something, and although I added some stars and light bulbs around the CIRCUS name, it still needed something else!
Then I thought of a crowd in the front of the ten, this would also give the frame another layer, and also add some vibrancy and atmosphere to the design.
I cut out a set of people in black, so they are in shadow, then I scanned the whole thing into the computer, and arranged in Procreate, and added some finishing detail, I decided to make the crowd slightly opaque, just because the black was quite harsh against the bright colours and the white, and rounded the edges slightly.
This is the final design (above).
Questions
Reflect on the limitation of only being able to use one material.
I found working with the paper and card enjoyable, and didn’t find that this limited me in anyway. I thought about how I could make it work from the beginning, and although I had to make some changes, on the whole it worked out ok.
How has it affected you creatively?
I am used to working with paper and being creative anyway, so it just made a change to have this in my degree work too, I enjoyed cutting and drawing and colouring in. I enjoyed the photography set up and working out how I can layer in real life, lots of Sellotape is how!
Was it a help or hindrance?
I found it a help, although thinking about it now, I think I should have made the sun bean effect out of paper too, so the whole poster was from paper!
What went well
The process I used of cutting out and then colouring in worked well, and using colours from the research helped to achieve the effects I wanted too.
Layering the cut outs on my dinning table gave me the space I needed to be creative, and get some good angels.
Using Procreate to layer up the design for the poster helped the process move quicker. Using this to remove backgrounds I didn’t want also helped with some photography situations.
I enjoyed creating a piece of art like the research illustrator Kelly Pousette, and understand how her process might work too.
What I would do differently
As mentioned above I would have made the sun beam out of paper too.
I would have got together a better area for the photography next time, somewhere with a white wall behind, some lights and less background distractions in the photo.
Up-dated 27/09/2022
After feedback from my tutor she wanted to see more characters and backgrounds slotted in, bunting or ribbons, more animals, and texture to the background, plus the thumbnails for the fonts layout.
I started by going back to the research I did above, and looked again at Kelly Pousette, and how she layers the motifs and uses frames to add depth, this gave me some more ideas on how to incorporate more characters and garlands etc.
I have added in my thumbnails for the fonts and typography, which I had done at the time.
I started by setting up the paper circus again, then I decided I wanted to add a curtain at the back to give the backdrop, and add texture. I had previously decided to do this digitally, but I think the matte quality of it on card would work the best.
I then went on to start some new illustrations, I decided I wanted to add two animals, and thought an elephant and tiger would be the most likely ones you would see in a retro circus.
I started sketching these on my iPad as I had done so with the original design, I also wanted to draw a ring master, and some bunting. I had thought about making more layers to the design, so the ring master would be up-front, the tiger poking his head around the curtain, then the strong man, the trapeze artist, then the elephant and bunting at the back.
I decided to use a limited colour palette, as my tutor has said throughout my feedback to work on limited palettes, so I thought this would be another good opportunity. I chose to use the colours from the original design, to keep the new characters and illustrations connected together. I also used more texture and shading in these illustrations, as that was also something my tutor had fed back to me, to make them less flat.
I then printed these illustrations out on white card, and started to cut them out using the same implements as before, a cutting knife and mat.
The one thing I remembered to do was add some extra white card to the standing characters so that I could make them stand up on their own. This was something I forgot to do first time around!
Once all the illustrations were cut out I started to place them behind the frame, in a layered and staggered effect, to give the depth the design needed.
You can see from this picture the layering going on behind the frame, I had to use many props to get the bunting and trapeze artist to hang from the air.
This is all the characters in place.
Then this is the final paper circus:-
I had a bit of trouble putting the new paper circus onto the old poster, but I managed it in the end. I added in some flooring in between the crowd and the circus tent as well, as my tutor suggested adding something there.
I think adding more characters added more depth and more excitement to the poster, sorting out the flooring and backdrop also helps. Making some more textures, keeping to a limited colour palette and adding depth has all helped the process come along.
The elephant in the background is a little hidden, maybe he could have been smaller which would make him look at though he is in the background more, the scale might have been better, but apart from than I am happy with the new poster.
ruthgoodwinsillustration.home.blog 