Underwater shopping

How does a mermaid go shopping? I wonder if there are corner stores...

Black Cats for Halloween

Although I did not actually make these for Halloween, I thought they would be good to post on such a date. These two cutouts of cats are both about 3.5 inches tall despite the fact they look to be different sizes in the pictures. They were super easy and fun to make. I scanned them into my computer and was even able to create cat stationary! While, I am not a huge cat lover (I like cats but do not really want one of my own. Mostly, because it would cause several beloved members of my family to have asthma attacks)I know several people who are BIG cat lovers. I wanted to make them happy and thought some cat cutouts, however small and quick they were to make, were long over due.

Coyote Card

At the beginning of this fall semester I was surprised by a very generous donation/scholarship. When I asked what I needed to do to receive the scholarship, I was told I just needed to write a thank you card! Of course I was going to write a thank you card! Some wonderful individual or organization (the scholarship was anonymous)gave me enough money to pay for two semesters of books and the tuition that was due after financial aid. I could not give this person/organization just any thank you card! No! They deserved the better than that. This is the card I sent them. They might not know it but its one of a kind and I won't ever cut this design again- that is how very grateful I am to them. Thank you kind and wonderful person/organization!

Sea Turtle

After the Gulf spill I often wondered about all of the sea creatures and people who had to deal with the aftermath of such a devastating spill. Right before much of the oil came to shore, my family and I were driving across country and got to spend time on the beaches that would soon be under a lot of crude oil. One sea creature that I adore is the sea turtle. There is something so wonderfully graceful and beautiful about it.

Goldfish

Sometimes everyone needs a grumpy Goldfish!

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Birthdays come about once a year and this year my friend threw a Joss Whedon costume party. Since this was the theme of the night and since she loves the she Buffy, I thought it was only fitting that I make her a Buffy cutout.

Dragonfly

Its been just over a month since I last posted! eek! I have been super busy with projects and family life and just have not had the time to up load the bunch of new pieces I have done.

This piece was done in preparation for a craft/art/peace fair I attended as a vendor. Sadly not very many people showed up but it was still a fun experience.

Unity

A dear friend of mine asked me to make a cutout for her step-father. He is a Minister of a Unity church. This was what the finished piece looked like.

ATC garden gate theme

This was my first month doing Artist trading cards or ATCs. I had a lot of fun doing it. They are all 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 inches...the smallest cuttings I have done yet!

Princess and the Frog

I decided to try entering in some of my cutouts into the State Fair. When I got there to turn them in there was a lot of confusion on what category they should go into. Finally, one was decided upon (Handicrafts),however, since there was only one catagory they fit into only one paper cut could be entered. So I decided upon this one....

Adam and Eve

As a quick replacement for a piece that feel during a show I created this piece.

Card #3

Another thank you card. This time it was for the lovely coffee shop owners who hosted my first scherenschnitte show.

Card #2

I am long over due sending off this card to my Grandmother. Sorry Gram!

Card #1

A friend was having a going away party and I realized I did not have anything to give her....what to do??? So with the few hours before the party I quickly made a card (which covers both gift- sort of- and the going away card!).
This was my smallest papercut at that time.

Doctor Who- Bad Wolf

Once I did one Doctor Who, I wanted to do another. Here it is...

Doctor Who

One of my dear friends loves Doctor Who. For his birthday I decided to give him a Dr Who cutout.

Sense and Sensibility: Waiting for Edward

Another Sense and Sensibility piece, this one thankfully did not fall and break!
I love Regency clothing. For me, the clothing holds almost as much appeal as the story line.

Falling for the Apple

Originally, this was supposed to be Snow White but then someone asked if the woman was Eve...either way you see it apples were not this girl's friend.


10-20-10: Edited version... I never really liked this piece so I reworked it. Here is the re-work.

A Friend in Need

I have always imagined that it would be wonderful to have a dragon for a friend. Books that feature dragons as pets always seem a bit off to me. Yes, in theory it sounds like it would be fun to have a pet dragon, challenging since they are so big and need so much food but fun. Still, when I picture dragons they are not as pets but as friends and wise beings that impart great knowledge. They might also be grumpy or cheerful, kind or cruel, steady or flighty, so basically just like any other friend. To try and contain such a being just seems wrong.

Winds of Change

Who doesn't love pirates? This piece is hanging up at the Community Cup, in Albuquerque on Central between 2nd and 3rd street. This lovely little coffee shop is such a wonderful place that hosts a new artist each month. I am so honored to be their July artist.

Many Hands Make Light Work

I love the "simple" life of those in Old Order Mennonite and Amish communities. I say "simple" because no matter how you live your life, life is never truly simple. However, I do believe that priorities are a bit more straight forward in Old Order communities. Following the seasons, sharing time with family and friends, taking care of people in one's community(community is sometimes defined in a world context, as well as in the local context), and spending time worshiping God. I am so honored and humbled to have come from this background and have a great love for my Old Order Mennonite brothers and sisters. I may not have been raised "plain" but being Mennonite is still very much in my blood. I think no matter how much you grow, how you were raised plays a large part in who you are as an adult.

Father's Day

I am a bit late in posting this but better late than never right? My Dad loves to play golf and on Father's Day I realized I had not come up with anything for this great man. So papercutting tools came out along with an old frame and present finished!

Sense and Sensibility and broken glass

Last week I hung up my first "gallery" showing of papercuts at a wonderful little coffee shop called the Community Cup. Unfortunately, after only a few hours I got a call from the owners of the shop telling me that one of my pieces' had fallen and the frame had broken. Of course, thin paper and broken glass do not mix. Still, with the magic of the digital camera at least the piece is not lost forever and you get to see what it looked like!

Life on the farm

This was a papercut I did a couple of months ago. I was playing around with a different style of papercutting. I was going for a folk art/woodcut look.

Mother's day love

A family portrait (of sorts) as a gift for my mother on Mother's day.

Dragon's Nest

My aunt is coming to town. She loves both dragons and gargoyles. As a welcome to town/early birthday present I made this for her.

Swan Lake

A few weeks ago it was Tchaikovsky's hundred and something birthday. To celebrate/honor that I did this piece of swan lake.

P.S. With great happiness I found out that I am not going to need surgery on my shoulder! With lots of PT it should be back to normal within a few months. I am so grateful that it has healed enough that I am able to do art again!

Making Zwieback

I just finished reading Mennonite in a Little Black Dress. I for the most part I liked it. I thought it was witty, amusing, and had some wisdom as well. I also found it very strange to have my culture talked about and not always in the most faltering way.

I learned an important lesson after doing this piece: check to make sure the eyes are right. While I have dubbed this piece "making zwieback" my family has dubbed it the "crazy eyes piece" or the "just plain creepy piece". So lesson learned and I will be careful not to make that mistake again!

Burrows of life

Sorry, its been so longs since I have posted. I have been dealing with a dislocated right shoulder which has meant that my drawing hand has been out of commission for the last few weeks.

Good news is that I am learning to write and draw with my left hand! Silver lining to everything!

Here is a series I am working on for a proposed series of metal cutouts that would be featured in the Sandia Foothills open spaces. Its been a rather slow process but tomorrow is my first presentation of the project... hopefully it will be well received.

(The photo is a bit tilted...I am hoping to go get scans of the sections and the whole piece soon but I need to go to a specialty store since Kinko's does not have a big enough scanner).

Shark tank cutout

After doing a field study on individuals reactions to sharks via the shark tank at my local aquarium, I decided to enhance my study with a cutout. What I found was that most people stopped long enough to take a photo of a shark with their phone or iPod and moved on. People did not take the time to really stop and look at the sharks or the rest of the life in the tank.

Duck Pond stop motion

Here is a short stop motion project I worked on for my Art and Ecology class...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU8fwQxbn3k

Indian Ocean cutout

Connections to nature...

More fun with papercutting.

Pacific Ocean cutout

Benten is the patron goddess of Japan. She is known for guarding the ocean, bringing good fortune and wealth, and for her music. I know the edges look wobbly but it is actually just the photo of the piece taken at an angle. I need to get a much bigger scanner!

Alaska

To celebrate my recent trip to Alaska I am posting another goddess cutout. Sedna protects the Arctic ocean and makes sure that people do not over hunt it or mistreat it. If she feels that people are abusing her ocean she gathers all of the animals and fish to her.

Ocean goddess project 1

Chalchiuhtlicue is a Mexican and Aztec goddess. I used her for the patron goddess of the Atlantic ocean. It is said that she became angry with the way people were treating the ocean and so she flooded the earth and turned the animals and humans she liked into fish until she allowed the earth to dry out.

With all of the earthquakes that have been happening one wonders if some of these ancient goddesses have become angry with the way we, the people of the world, have been treating their domains (although if that were true one wonders why they are not focusing on the the countries that are causing most of the problems). Hmm...just something to think about.

Here is my rendition of Chalchiuhtlicue in all of her glory....

schernschnitte...the beginning

I have discovered a new art love: Scherenschnitte! or in English: papercutting! It is so much fun and I am really going to town with it!

Here is one of my pieces so far....

Three sisters method

As part of a project I illustrated squash, beans, and corn. These are the main components of the Three Sisters planting method. The corn acts as a pole for the beans. The beans give nitrogen to the soil and the squash shades the roots of the plants and discourages predators. More illustrations may come a little later...we will see :)