A Year In Numbers

This year, and in particular the last few months, Oh Cut It Out has come on in leaps and bounds. I've sent Gilmore Girls cards to Chicago to be used as party invitations, added shipping to New Zealand and Denmark at the request of customers, and spent an unenviable amount of time in the post office queue...

Below is a quick roundup of some of the years highlights...

"You Are Here" papercut exhibited as part of Derby Museums' "Everyone" exhibition.

Gilmore Girls "Stars Hollow" papercut map.  

Cut during a week of intense Gilmore Guys podcast binge listening, this papercut has been printed on postcards, greetings cards, and prints which in turn have been posted to the US, Canada, Europe, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand... A completely unexpected best seller!

Blog header for https://honestlylucy.com/ 

I'll be doing more work for Lucy in the new year!

My cards in Derby Museums shop!

SRSLY Gilmore Girls quiz winners proudly holding my "Stars Hollow" prints (photo from @JoeInnes twitter).

Christmas Fair @ The Walled Garden, Beeston Fields.

2016 in numbers...

475+ sales on etsy
37 US states Gilmore Girls postcards have been posted to
6 Gilmore Girls prints & 6 Gilmore Girls postcards used as prizes for the SRSLY Gilmore Girls quiz
6 blogs featured Gilmore Girls cards/prints on gift guides
3 stockists secured 
3 fairs attended 
1 piece of work included in Mine Anthology in support of #repealthe8th
1 Gilmore Girls postcard featured on the official Netflix/Gilmore Girls website
1 Gilmore Girls postcard featured on Buzzfeed
1 piece of work exhibited at Derby Museums

Fingers crossed (and with a lot of hard work) 2017 continues to exceed my expectations...

Happy Holidays!

Until next time...

-Karen

Papercut Polaroids

If you follow Oh Cut It Out on social media you've probably noticed that I like to draw inspiration for artwork from song lyrics. The first piece of papercutting I ever made (back when I was a student living off buttery toast and Yorkshire tea) used the Zeppelin lyrics "if there's a bustle in your hedgerow don't be alarmed now".

In recent months I've cut Billy Bibby's lyric "you keep me waitin' and waitin' for you" from the song "Waitin' For You" beneath an intricate, floral skull; and used Michael Malarkey's lyric "these holes in our hearts are like diamonds to some" from the song "Holes" to inspire a geometric anatomical heart...

Well, I've been at it again. This time with Darling BOY lyrics. I was feeling kind of upside down and uninspired (designing Christmas cards in July will do that to you) and these lyrics jumped out at me...

"We're living in a photograph

To keep the past just close enough" 

- "Bless Your Bones", Darling BOY

Recently my work has been growing in size. I want big designs with intricate detail. There's a soaring sense of achievement when you've spent 20 hours cutting one piece of card, and only one of your fingers has a plaster wrapped around it.

But working on large pieces all of the time becomes overwhelming. Polaroids seemed like the perfect antidote.

I dug out some old Polaroids of my parents first dog, Dylan, and cut out a German Shepherd beneath a leafy tree... Then I went looking for visual lyrics that could be executed in a limited space:

 "Are you ducking and diving round the houses?"

- "Oh Roisin!", Darling BOY

These papercuts remind me of the booklets you get in CD cases... Each song represented by a papercut visual and corresponding lyric. If people still bought CD's, that is...

"You knocked the wind out of my sails"

- "Shirley", Darling BOY

I'm so happy with how these lyric Polaroids turned out, and I suspect I'll be cutting out more in the future... Watch this space!

For more music chat go back and read 'The Lost Art of the Mix CD'.

You can find Darling BOY's ep 'In Flames!' on iTunes and Spotify.
 
Until next week...

-Karen

Everyone: Your Place In The World

"Everyone: Your Place In The World"

Derby Museums

9 July - 25 September 2016

This summer Derby Museums invited local artists to fill the gallery with "a joyful riot of colour and technique that illustrate the theme 'your place in the world."* 

The piece I submitted "You Are Here" is a papercut map of Derby City Centre littered with familiar landmarks (Derby Cathedral, Silk Mill, Market Hall, etc), houses and cars. Growing up in Derby I've studied, shopped and drank (a bit too much) in these streets. For most of my life my place in the world has been Derby, even if at times I've wished it wasn't... 

I like maps that use symbols as well as literal representations of buildings. If you look closely the library is an open book, the registry office is a diamond ring, and the cinema is a clapperboard...

The papercut is displayed in a custom 'floating frame' (sandwiched between two pieces of glass) so that the gallery spotlights cast dancing shadows.

The exhibition runs until 25 September. If you're in the area stop by and vote for your favourite piece! 

You can find "You Are Here" in Gallery 1 (number 62). It is available for purchase via Derby Museums.

#DerbyEveryone

"Everyone is in keeping with Derby Museums' desire to actively build, encourage and value creativity in everyone.  We're delighted to see the galleries full to bursting with amazing artworks that illustrate our shared world and our place within it." 

-Andrea Hadley-Johnson, 

Co-production and Engagement Manager

Until next week...

-Karen


*"Everyone: Your Place In The World" exhibition guide

Diagon Alley

If you thought I was done with cutting out fictional streets, you were wrong... Behold papercut Diagon Alley! Tap the brick with your umbrella (or, you know, scroll down) to see your favourite wizarding shops immortalised in card.

Diagon Alley is a "cobbled shopping area for the wizarding world, where Hogwarts students can purchase necessary supplies".* It can be found just off Charing Cross Road in London.  

The shopping street is completely unseen by Muggles, and can be accessed by tapping a particular brick in the wall of the pub the Leaky Cauldron.

In 'The Philosopher's Stone' Harry visits Diagon Alley for the first time to buy supplies for his first year at Hogwarts.  Through Harry's eyes we encountered goblins at Gringotts Wizarding Bank, bought a wand at Ollivanders, and were introduced to Hedwig at Eeylops Owl Emporium.

Diagon Alley connects to the less reputable shopping street Knockturn Alley. The shops in this area, including Borgin and Burkes, are dedicated to the Dark Arts.

As with the Hogsmeade papercut map, I used a little Photoshop magic to turn Diagon Alley into a postcard...

Diagon Alley postcards are made from high-quality, lightly textured card. To purchase one visit my etsy shop: OhCutItOut.etsy.com

Until next week...

-Karen 


*Pottermore.com

Hogsmeade

Since papercutting the Gilmore Girls "Stars Hollow" map I was itching to start another... Being a big Harry Potter fan (who isn't?) where better to look for unusual buildings than Hogsmeade?

As all Harry Potter fans know, Hogsmeade is located in Scotland to the northwest of Hogwarts where its architecture reflects its medieval origin. The leaning medieval buildings on the High Street have pointed roofs with tall chimneys.

JK Rowling's Hogsmeade Village is the "only entirely non-muggle settlement in Britain."*

Hogwarts students frequent Hogsmeade High Street on weekends: drinking butterbeer in The Three Broomsticks pub, eating chocolate frogs outside Honeydukes sweet shop, and buying nose-biting teacups from Zonko's joke shop. I labelled the notable shops in their original fonts...

The village also contains a train station and the infamous Shrieking Shack.

As with the "Stars Hollow" papercut map, I turned Hogsmeade into a postcard with Gryffindor's striking burgundy as the background colour...

Hogsmeade postcards are made from high-quality, lightly textured card. To purchase one visit my etsy shop: OhCutItOut.etsy.com

Until next week...

-Karen


*Pottermore.com

Papercut Seaside

Last week I spent a few days by the seaside playing mini golf and avoiding the news... Never one to miss an opportunity to try something new, I packed some mini papercuts to photograph on the seafront.

The idea was to create papercuts that would sit comfortably in the seaside surroundings, whilst adding a little art to an environment where we are not used to seeing it.

Among the papercuts I packed were: a windmill, a lighthouse, a seahorse, tiny sunglasses, and striped beach huts. My preferred backdrop for many of the papercuts was the beach.

 

My favourite photos from the collection are of the delicate sea shells. These photos are successful because the papercuts are approximately the same size as an average sea shell, and therefore sit comfortably among the pebbles and seaweed. The beach provided a perfect natural backdrop for the alien, white shapes.

I used the blue sky and sea as a backdrop for some floral papercuts. Whilst I like the seagull skimming the white clouds, I'm not sure the whale tail papercut would be mistaken for a whale splashing just off shore... Like most things, it looked better in my head.

Although some of my ideas worked better than others, I enjoyed the challenge I created for myself. Remaining alert to potential photo opportunities meant that I really paid attention to my surroundings.

I'd like to try this challenge again in a city environment where I could produce papercuts to interact with the buildings. Much of the time we don't pay attention to the streets we pass through daily, and so this would be a fun way to highlight the interesting buildings that we tend to ignore.

What shapes would you have photographed on the seafront?

Until next week...

-Karen

Stars Hollow

Stars HOLLA!

As a papercut artist I'm always looking for ways to combine my craft with my interests... And with the news of the upcoming Gilmore Girls Netflix reboot, and 183 episodes of the Gilmore Guys podcast under my belt, a Gilmore Girls themed papercut seemed inevitable...

 

As all Gillies know, Gilmore Girls is set in the fictional small town of Stars Hollow, located approximately 30 minutes from Hartford in Connecticut.

I love personalised maps, and since my search for a Stars Hollow papercut map turned up zero results I began plotting to cut one out... I used an aerial photograph of the Warner Brothers studio back lot (where the show is filmed) to ensure the correct locations of the buildings.

 

Many of the houses and businesses within Stars Hollow have distinct exteriors, although perhaps only an avid Gilmore Girls viewer could distinguish them all... For this reason I sprinkled identifying symbols and initials across the map.

For example, Luke's Diner is topped with the recognisable coffee cup logo, Miss Patty's School of Ballet has a pair of ballet slippers, and Taylor Doose's Old-Fashioned Soda Shoppe has an ice-cream shaped window.

Over the past 21 months the popularity of the Gilmore Guys podcast (hosted by Kevin and Demi) has united the Gilmore Girls fan base, and formed friendships via social media. 

Rather than make my Stars Hollow papercut into a print, I turned it into postcards in the hope that Gillies would send handwritten messages to one another! I know I'd rather receive a postcard than a tweet any day...

The postcards are made from high-quality, lightly textured card and I am so happy with them! To purchase one visit my etsy shop: OhCutItOut.etsy.com

And now for the important bit: Team Dean, Team Jess or Team Logan?

Until next week...

-Karen