eller

This fairy is again made with the help of the craft materials sent to me by Up-Quark.



Stuff I used:

I bought some new toys!



In my last papercutting suply post, I had mentioned my intention to buy a cutting mat. Well, I did that! I mail-ordered one from Gerstaecker (one of Germany's largest art supply stores), and because I've never before owned a cutting mat and don't know the quality criteria, I simply took the cheapest one: their home brand. (I've made good experiences with their own products before; those are usually perfectly good artists quality.) What can I say? I'm very happy with this purchase! Turns out this is a much better support for cutting than the back of watercolor pads. The mat provides the perfect counterpressure without getting scratched, and the paper edges turn out very clean. This is clearly an improvement.

Additionally, because I was curious, I ordered some weird products. These art knives are not held like pens but rather act as an elongation of the index finger: basically, you cut by pointing. They're made by Fiskars, which means they were on the expensive side, but also, I was expecting reliable quality. The orange one is a fixed blade, the white one is a swivel blade.



My first impression is, wow, this is an interesting product! Also, as you can see, the hole is a bit too large for my finger, but that's not a design flaw; rather, I simply have very small hands. I will have to modify that grip with tape. (Not the first time I've had to do that with tools.) Especially, I really enjoy the fixed-blade one. The blade size is chosen in a way that the tip is exactly where my index finger would be pointing, which is very helpful! I managed some very precise test cuts without even a period of having to get used to how this instrument behaved, it's just that intuitive. I have a lot of control over the pressure, too: that's directly controlled by the index finger as well. I think I'll be using this scalpel quite regularly! (Especially since I don't enjoy holding pens and pencils, so anything that feels less like a pen and more like a natural body extension is a welcome improvement.)



Interestingly, I'm less sure about the swivel blade (the white one). Because that blade rotates, the blade's orientation doesn't always align with the direction my finger is pointing, and because I'm a very primitive and very direct person, this is causing me some issues. Basically, the main advantage the tool with the fixed blade provides me is gone, so despite the design similarities, my brain interprets this as a completely different tool. A sure sign of that is that I instinctively use these tools with different hands: the fixed-blade one wants to be an extension of my left hand, while the swivel-blade one feels more like a knife, and, as such, has to be used with my right. By the way, it's an excellent knife (I mean, it should be, for the price... Otherwise, I'd be upset!), and I still like it better than the more pen-like swivel-blade scalpel I already owned, so I guess it's good to have. Just... It's the fixed-blade one I'm super happy with. Amazing tool design.

In case anyone is curious: these are my most important papercutting tools.



In this picture:
- large scissors (for long cuts; actually the professional thing because hey, Fiskars is a ridiculously expensive brand but they do make great scissors)
- small papercutting scissors (actually also the professional thing; these ones are from "ideen mit herz")
- utility knife with snap-off blade (the most important tool ever: cheap, reliable, irreplaceable)
- tiny paper scalpel thingy (No idea which brand this one is, but it's magic: I got it in an Advent calendar a few years ago, regularly use it since then, and the blade shows no sign of wear at all.)
- black paper: professional papercutting paper. Because I'm not a professional, I tore it, which is something I often do with paper.
- white paper: super-cheap note paper that I use for my practice papercuts. It's not good paper, but it somehow works.

I'm showing a close-up of the sharp things because the tips are kind of important.



NOT in these pictures:
- Japanese swivel knife which I have somehow misplaced. (It has to be somewhere in my suitcase, I guess.)
- can of spray glue
- cutting mat, because I don't own one yet. (You may think it's kind of important to have one, but so far, I've simply used scrap paper and the back of watercolor pads. I'm planning to buy one next week, though.)
- like, twenty scissors I can't use for various reasons. (I draw and write with my left, which is why well-meaning people assume I'm left-handed and keep gifting me scissors intended for use with the left hand... Except, oops, I'm actually mixed-handed, and I use almost all tools with the right, including scissors and knives. Also, yes, I usually hide that because of the serious stigma, so ending up with wrong scissors is partly my own fault for "passing" as lefthanded, which is also a social problem but less of one. Of the tools shown here, I'd only use the smallest scalpel, which feels like a pen in my hand, with my left!)
- lifetime supply of different papers. LOL

Fanart. Because, hey, I like ballet. (I quit dancing because it turned out I love chess that crucial bit more, but that doesn't mean I quit watching...)



This is again a papercut postcard, though it's not sent to anyone yet. Was intended for Postcrossing, but... I like it a bit too much to send it to a random stranger. (I guess I'm just not nice enough. I've sent original papercuts, but only much simpler ones.) I may get prints of this one, though. It's a design that I enjoy.

I was sooooo amused earlier when I drew an address on Postcrossing and got a nice person in Russia whose hobbies are... music (!) and papercutting (!!!). That's... kind of niche, but of course, I was super happy! I don't usually make papercut cards for postcrossing, simply because that's too much work, but in this case I was willing to make an exception.



Not very detailed, but hey, it would be a shame not to send a papercut, right? I didn't find my good scalpels so I had to use one that wasn't really sharp anymore, and it kind of shows, but whatever. This took me a bit over an hour as it is. XD At least I used decent paper (not silhouette paper, but a very good alternative intended for... lamination?!?, but also very stable - it works great!) and decent spray glue. The background is simple white cardboard. I'll be mailing this in an envelope because I don't trust Deutsche Post with my art. XD

Part 1, Shadow theater, the process
Part 2, Papercuts and storytelling
Part 3, Shadow art, paper art
Part 4, Palaeolithic Animation

In this fifth installment, I will again talk about some inspiring art pieces (in the widest sense) that involve a shadow, silhouette, and/or paper craft component.

''Waldschattenspiel' (Shadow in the Woods) by Walter Kraul

The Waldschattenspiel is an impressive board game for children aged 5+, and it's played in a dark room, by moving a tea light through a forest. A full English-language review with pictures can be found here. The trees cast shadows. There are two variations how you can play this, both of them cooperative: A) The players are supposed to meet under a certain tree while staying in the shadows all the way, and a game master moves the candle according to certain rules. If you're hit by light, another player needs to come to your rescue so you can move again. B) You move through the forest, but if you end up in the shadows, you get lost. You can be rescued by another player if they use a mirror thingy to reflect the candlelight to your location.

...it's pretty brilliant, and I LOVED this as a little child, when I played this with my parents! I suppose I learned a few things about perspective and geometry along the way? But mainly, it's the atmosphere - the room is dark, and there's only one small, flickering light... It's very primal (actually, come to think of it, this is also how cave art and shadow theater work!) and instinctive, and playing it feels good. I was never a fan of non-competitive games, but I was making an exception for this one.

Safety note: if you think a game that involves combining paper, open fire, and little children has a few practical issues, you'd be correct. This is why the instructions are very clear that only a grown-up is supposed to move the burning candle. Seriously.

'Instrument Buch' by Peter Apian

This is actually a math book... From 1533. (This is one of the rare cases in which I actually bought an expensive facsimile of an old book.) I'm including this not only because you all know I'm obsessed when it comes to sundials and related tech (what can I say; I really like shadows), but also because Peter Apian included some suuuuuuper nice volvelles. (Even more of those can be found in his Astronomicum Caesareum.) That is, pictures the reader was supposed to cut out and build quadrants and other observational instruments from. YAY! The whole text is surprisingly interactive for a book this age (and I think the only way the author got away with that was by founding his own print shop: I strongly suspect he did that because any publishers he showed his work to would have balked, but hey), including many woodcut illustrations (works by H. Brosamer and M. Ostendorfer) as well as those lovely paper sheets for crafting. It's a great piece of art. And, by the way? The math is impeccable.

Apian is often overlooked as a mathematical researcher, because he deliberately aimed this book at the lower classes. The author had some freakishly modern ideas about education: he stated the opinion it's totally possible to teach math to peasants if you remove all the fancy words. The Instrument Buch is designed to be read (and crafted, and used) by people without an academic background! The explanations can be understood without any previous mathematical education. Somehow, the author managed to pull this off without dumbing the content down - many of the shown scientific instruments are his own designs, and they're excellent, but he explains their use in a very straightforward way that, apparently, disqualified him as an intellectual. (Seriously, check the works of some of his contemporary math authors like, say, Copernicus. That stuff is not actually better, it's just phrased in a fancier way...) The content of the Instrument Buch is all you ever need to know about projections: absolutly enough to pass a Geology 101 exam, presented in a straightforward no-nonsense way. It's still one of the best textbooks out there (if you ignore the somewhat antiquated language), and yes, that's my professional opinion. It makes Apian one of my fave math authors. Also: PRETTY PAPERCRAFT STUFF!!!

'Silhouettes Tarot' by Masa Kuzuki

A lovely tarot deck, and it's in silhouette style illustrations... I believe this did not actually involve any paper cutting, but digital painting of black silhouette images in front of colorful background illustrations - which is an artistic style I had not encountered before. (I'm used to simple, single-color backgrounds for silhoutte art.) It really works, though! The background illustrations are also in a clear, ornamental style, so the whole concept feels very natural. I've never written a full deck review, and that's because I rarely use this deck, but I enjoy having it in my collection and occasionally looking at the pictures!

'Picture This: How Pictures Work' by Molly Bang

This is the reference text for artistic composition: the author explains the effects of certain spapes and compositions on the viewer, and how to use these effects in your art. She does this... with papercuts. (The example story she uses is 'Little Red Riding Hood', because clearly, papercuts and fairy tales just go together. LOL) The visuals are deceptively simple, with nothing distracting from the effects of the composition, and the explanations short but to the point... This is a definite recommendation for anyone interested in the visual arts, not just for those of us who are into papercuts and/or shadow theater. No matter what you do - drawing, painting, papercrafting - the principles of composition are the same, and knowing which psychological effects you can induce in your vievers is extremely useful. If you ask me, this is the best guide to visual composition on the market.

...okay, this is getting long-ish again. There's more awesome art, and I guess I'll have to continue this series further. LOL

So, since I talked about shadow theater yesterday, I thought I'd talk a bit about the underlying traditional craft, Scherenschnitt (papercut), today - especially about the performance aspects of it.

I think you've all seen silhouette art before. Pretty much everyone agrees that papercut art was originally invented by the Chinese (who also came up with paper in the first place), but you know how it is with good ideas: they spread. In northern Europe, this traditional craft focuses mainly on portraiture, fairy tales and folk tales - in fact, at least from the 18th to the 20th century, it was considered the most appropriate form of illustration for traditional tales in Germany. I'm not just interested in Scherenschnitt (the German word for papercut art in this style) as illustration, though - in fact, I consider it a cultural loss to reduce it to that. Making a Scherenschnitt is, and always has been, a performance. The process is usually much more interesting than the results.

The first time I encountered Scherenschnitt as a live performance was as a young child (I was 5 or 6, maybe) at a market stall. Someone was sitting there and doing Scherenschnitt portraits of people, and I guess my parents had a bit of spare money at the time, because they paid the artist to do a portrait of me. (It's still in a picture frame on their wall. This should tell you two things: this is a VeryTraditionalHousehold (TM), and proud parents are proud parents everywhere.) Unfortunately, I don't remember the artist at all, not even if that was a man or a woman (and I'd have to take the picture out of its frame to look at the signature, which is typically on the back because you don't write or draw on Scherenschnitt art), but I remember being fascinated by the process of this person picking up black paper and scissors and... a face - my face - just appearing. I guess I don't need to explain it's extremely difficult to do a recognizable papercut portrait of someone without a preliminary drawing? Anyway, that was magical. Interestingly, in the result, it's visible how fascinated I was: some of you (the ones on access, anyway) have seen photos of the very peculiar 'focused' facial expression Kiddo!Eller had while playing chess. The Scherenschnitt somehow managed to capture exactly that. Baby!Eller was watching carefully.

At that time, of course, I didn't make papercut art. I enjoyed papercraft all right, but... Well. I wasn't the kind of artistic prodigy who would have been able to produce anything like that as a child! First, I had to figure out that I really need to use scissors and knives with my right hand despite being left-handed when it comes to everything else, like writing or drawing. (Yes, I know special scissors for lefties exist. No, my parents bought me those - they don't believe all the superstition about lefties and didn't try to re-train me when they noticed I picked up pens with my left - but leftie scissors don't help. I'm simply not capable of cutting properly with my left hand. It's interesting that cutting and drawing seem to require completely different brain activity despite both resulting in a picture, but there you go.) Also, no one in my family practices the art. (And the only shadow play I was exposed to was Mom shaping rabbits and such with her hands - you know. I got to see 'normal' puppet theater from my grandfather and father but was never really into that...) My first papercut was an ATC I made in 2009:



This is very obviously beginner work. The not-very-clean edges are not only my fault; the unsuitable material (a plain index card!) contributed, but, well. I also did not have that much control yet. Still, I'm quite happy how it turned out - as a first attempt, it's fine. Could have been much worse.

In the following years, I practiced a bit, but I was only able to add more detail on that small format when I actually used 'the good stuff', that is, professional-level papercut paper. This exists for a reason: it's thin enough for fast and easy cutting, but doesn't tear. Much. (I have, of coursed, managed even that... My superpower: destroying paper.) The following are two very classical fantasy-themed ATCs I made in 2015, using both scissors and knives. (In case you were wondering: I don't use any expensive tools for this. My favorite scissors came from the Euro Shop, and I really love break-off cutter knives. The only not-super-cheap tool I own is a Japanese swivel scalpel I wouldn't want to miss.)





These are actually okay-ish: I notice all the ways in which I could have done that better, and I shudder, but I guess all artists do that. LOL (I have somewhat better technique these days, but I haven't made any Scherenschnitt ATCs lately. Should probably do that again at some point...) Anyway... These pictures, unfortunately, were made at home, so no one got to watch the process, which is a total waste if you ask me. I think I have mentioned how the making of this stuff is soooo much more interesting than just pictures? Also: traditionally, it's inextricably linked with storytelling.

A famous example of papercut performance art are the papercuts by Hans Christian Andersen who is (unjustly) mainly known as a writer these days, but who was a storyteller really - his performances involved telling stories while cutting paper pictures. (He started his career at a theater, actually was into singing and acting before he began to write, so it's safe to assume he was extremely good at entertaining an audience!) Of course, having really good stories helped. (I mean, how many films are there of the Little Mermaid alone? I believe they recently made a new one though I haven't watched it yet.) Only the written versions lasted until today, but... From a storyteller standpoint it's really obvious his stories were designed to be told - I'll spare you the structural analysis of Andersen's fairy tales and a discussion of storytelling techniques vs. short-story writing techniques, and the (deliberate) use of colloquial vs. 'literary' language, but Andersen's stuff firmly falls into the first category. Just believe me, I would pay a shit ton of money for an opportunity to watch one of Andersen's performances... (Wrong century, alas.)

Later, as soon as film began to be a thing, silhouette animation also became a thing, especially in Germany - I simply have to mention Lotte Reiniger here, who pioneered that art form (and created the first feature-length animated film, before Walt Disney did, but got a lot less public credit due to being, well, female), but since this is getting long-ish again, I guess I'll save an in-depth discussion for another post. I will note, though, that her famous 1922 version of Cinderella (and, nope, absolutely not a coincidence she did fairy tales, too - people come with cultural backgrounds!) not only involves animated silhouette figures, but also animated silhouette hands cutting silhouette figures. She simulated the effect of hands appearing on a shadow theater screen nicely (and used it for effect!), which means she was absolutely aware of (and likely also personally experienced with) the cutting process itself as a performance technique in storytelling.