New Works

A nice long break over Christmas has afforded me time to get back to my beloved paper pop ups. I've been playing with doodles from my sketchbook (and on every scrap of paper in the house) and transcribing their loopy energy into 3-D, together with spirals - which I love cutting out (very Zen!). I have boxes full of hand-painted papers, which I make in the summer when I can work in the back yard. It's lovely to be in my cozy studio on these cold winter days, enjoying working with papers created during sunny, warm times.

Loopy Doodles

Leaf Trails

Paper Engineering at HSAD

Summer Workshops 

Another brilliant day of messing about with paper at the Haliburton School of the Arts. We went to town with sculptured popups and platforms. Everything from colourful creatures to architectural abstracts and flights of fancy and fantasy. 

I'm always amazed at the fabulous ideas that pop up at these workshops. 

The energy was high and the work was inspiring!

Unfortunately, something went wrong with my camera and I was disappointed to discover I had lost many of the photos I took of the work that was created. 

Sculpted creature

Architectural Platform

Hand-painted paper Abstract

Frog on a Lily Pad Platform

More Hand-painted Paper

Abstract Platform

Sun Sculpture

Weekend Workshop at META4 Gallery

A stellar crop of PopUps from a fabulous group in Port Perry this Saturday. It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun learning how to make these nested parallel folds and platforms. Everyone took their piece in a different direction with lots of great ideas. They kept me on my toes and, as always, made me think about new directions for my own work. A big Thank You to the owners of META4 - Jen, Birgitta, and Bonnie!

Small Things

I set myself a small project a few nights ago that I completed in an evening. 

A couple of weeks ago I was showing my work to a book artist, who in turn showed me her work. She told me that her time was at a premium, so when she wanted to make something, it had to be done within a couple of hours. I put off projects because I start thinking everything has to be epic - but nothing gets done unless I have loads of spare time - which I don't! So I took inspiration from the 'quick and dirty' method - 2 hours and it's done. There's a lot to be said for making fast artistic decisions and using what materials are at hand. It's also a really great way of using up some of those beautiful scraps that I can't bear to throw out. And at the end, it's so much more satisfying to have a little concertina popup book in hand, than to say I binge-watched yet another series of detective shows on Netflix...

Prow

Sculpted paper,spirals and layered pull-up constructions

Tide Pools

Platform PopUp - Top View

Tide Pools

Platform PopUp - Top View

Side View

Tide Pools

Parallel Layers

Block City

Simple structures can create beautiful abstract designs. Using contrasting colours on the front and back of the paper can give you lovely effects.

Fiesta

A Platform PopUp with central tower. Hand-painted paper.

What's Left

Platform PopUp with central tower. Hand-painted with acrylics.