Fish: Paper Cutting- My Stamps

Here are the 4 stamps I have designed in relation to The End of the Line. The images are edited photographs of some of the paper cuttings I have produced.

The stamps in the presentation pack:

I have thoroughly enjoyed this project. I am glad I chose to specialise in paper cutting as I have produced learnt and developed a new skill which I will continue with.

Fish: Paper Cutting- Final Designs

These are my final designs for my stamps. Type was included on each of the initial designs, however I decided not to continue with this idea as the imagery was strong enough on its own that a word or phrase was not needed to explain the message. And also as the outcome will be a stamp (no bigger than 3x3cm) the text may be hard to read.

Fish: Workshops

In this module there were several workshops I attended to help develop my skills and ideas in this project.

The origami workshop was completely different from what I had focused deeply on for a few weeks- from small delicate 2D outcomes to large 3D objects. As a group we made a collection of sea creatures which would be suspended.

A small-medium matchbox was provided for us, and our task was to create a message related to the over fishing problem involving a fish and a human. My message is revealed by sliding the matchbox lid to the right which alters the illustration- both fish and human change slightly. The person is happy when there is fish to eat, they don't care if it is sustainable or not. The action of sliding the slide back and forth symbolises the person not changing their act on this over fishing problem.

It is vital to photograph handmade art the best you can, seeing an artist's work in photo isn't the same as real life. The photography workshop helped us to try and capture the best of our work, which I hope I have done. With all my paper cuttings I photographed with a light shining from underneath the table which helps indentify the design.

Below I experimented with shadows that looked great however it was fairly hard to capture them.

Fish: Paper Cutting- Sushi

These sushi paper cuts outs are not as affective as the previous work I have done. Also the bottom 3 are japanese inspired illustrations therefore aren't realistic and don't really fit in with the style. It isn't obvious what the images are. Sushi is recognised by its colourful appearance which these paper cuttings are lacking, only the positive and negative space of paper form the image.

Fish: Paper Cutting- Net

The net is vital in fishing, the simple repetitive pattern is easily recognised. Using the same technique the pattern has formed the image below.

In reverse I placed the main image in the pattern. I like how the fish is visible in the negative net, however I don't find the cube like style affective, I think it takes away the delicate structure.

Fish: Paper Cutting- Fish

Using the coral designs as templates, I integrated the patterns in the simple fish shapes.

Fish: Paper Cutting- Coral

Rob Ryan, Hina Aoyama and Yulia Brodskaya are a few of the amazing artists who specialise in paper cutting. The end results are truely astonishing it was hard for me to believe their detailed delicate work was produced by hand using a scalpel or scissors.

Here are some examples of my paper cuttings. I decided to look at textures/ patterns in the sea like coral which could be incorparated in my work to add interest.