In the run up to Christmas I’ve been doing some local craft fairs and Christmas markets. I spend lots of time explaining to people how my work is created and showing them the originals in my portfolio. I know that at first glance, it’s not always obvious that my originals are paper cuts in the traditional sense, i.e. silhouette style pictures with minimal colour, so I always like to explain how they are made. This usually leads to people exclaiming “you must have so much patience”! I’m not the most patient person usually, so this got me thinking about why I do love an artform which is so time consuming and where, at every stage of it’s creation, the slightest slip and I could ruin the whole thing. The answer is, I don’t know. All I know is that every time I pick up my scalpel and make a little hole in the paper and see the picture start to grow, I’m content.
I love the act of creation, of drawing something, then watching that picture emerge from the piece of paper with every hole that is cut away. I could stop there, but I love colour, so I paint a background for it which perfectly matches up with the original papercut’s tiny details. When the two are combined, they look like an amazing stained glass picture.
Image featured is ‘House on a Fairisle’
Copyright 2015 © Kelly Rosser Kelly Cuts Paper