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