Papercut Done And Rain Pounds down

What a grey day! My studio is cozy and dry... and I am glad to say that the latest cutting is done.

It is a scene that depicts what the American Saddllebred is bred to do...go on pleasure rides with style! The idea for this cutting came during my Kentucky trip and the Show of Breeds at the Kentucky Horse Park. The image measures 8 1/2" x 10" and is cut from one piece of paper. A labor of love. It is already up on my website.

Kyle is supposed to kiss us today in Downeast Maine with high winds and rain. The rain is coming down now...the winds come later tonight, I guess. I just finished taking down our summer awning that shades our back deck. Six years ago today we moved into our cottage here in Morrill. A few days later we had a big storm with high winds and rain. The awning that was on the house when we bought it, ripped and shredding ..I don't want a rerun of that, thank you. So down comes the awning today before the storm. The slant of the sun is lower now anyway so we don't really need the awning to shade the house...now we need the sun to spill into the living room to warm the house on cooler days.

The Silhouette

In the past centuries silhouettes were usually portraits made of the profile of the subject and cut out of black paper mounted on white paper. Simple, and flat looking. My fascination with silhouette began in Italy, where I was studying at the Academy of Fine Art in Rome. There I was turned onto the amazing papercut works of an artist named Ugo Mochi. [1889-1977] A master at achieving the illusion of movement and drama from a simple papercut, his works were done with the skill of a sculptor.

This challenge to envision an entire picture in black and white and then to achieve depth and perception and a sense of movement all cut from one piece of paper, intrigues me and I am drawn to this challenge.

The above papercut is an example of my silhouette work. Black and white, yin and yang, design and abstract pattern at its most simple.

Shades of Black

My "Shades of Black" #5 in a series of light and shadows as they play around my two black Tennessee Walking horses, is done. My first works in this series seem to be have been more free from internal clutter. This last work , with brighter highlights, more color and less of a silhouette effect seems to be saying more, but also has more.....it seems not to be leaving so much for the viewer to imagine.

This series is an interesting result of my fascination with silhouettes and the abstract pattern that the emerges when I am challenged with just the white and black ,abstract yin and yang when leaving out distracting detail. I have always worked in black and white cut paper before when I did silhouette compositions...this series is a journey into another medium [casein] but capturing the same depth and movement with simplicity.

I will talk more about the actually paper cutting fascination another day. Today the sun beckons and the horses are shedding........Spring is almost here!!!!