I just finished my latest commissioned painting and have some free time on hand; I decided to have some fun and make some one of a kind Christmas gifts.
This Christmas bookmark is made from a large Starbucks coffee cup, the string is from an old calendar. Perfect for the book loves I know.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Starbucks bookmark
For the one who has everything this is my hand-cut one of a kind bookmarks from a recently discarded Starbucks coffee cups just in time for the season of giving.The bookmark still have a slight scent of coffee.
During my art college years I enjoyed making art with found material. I always on the out look for material .One day, I discovered a boxful of small booklet discarded outside of the school library. The booklet was about how to use the library and how to reach the members of the staff which about 5” square with 12 pages.
I took a handful of the booklet and use them for my screen printing. on each page I made a separate screen for it.
Recently, I came across those made-over library booklets I started to adding paper cutting on each pages because each page with different color and design it keep one wanted to turn the page to see the next layer. the design for this page was inspired by William Morris. ( I place a sheet of white paper behind for better photo)
Our bunny found not one but two Easter eggs, one is chocolate!
Happy Easter to all!
(I made this bunny with the Starbucks holiday cups and the background is one of my watercolors.)
Today, Jan 21 is national squirrel appreciation day. let’s celebrate those cute animals however they don’t make good house guests.
Here is my Squirrel post card with its own stamps watercolor with stamps, 5.5″x7″
This one is a paper cut on a coffee bag, 4.5″x12″
Another watercolor on paper, 5.5″x7″
this one is a paper cut on a shopping bag
Today, November 11 is Remembrance Day here in Canada. It is a day to pay tributes to ones who gave their lives in the wars.
Although none from my family went to the wars but many of my parents’ family members has lost everything including their lives because of it. Many are like us has their live changed and needed to escape to a more peaceful country. Today, I think of the ones were not as lucky as I am and had to experienced the horrors and the pains of the war.
I made the paper cut poppy on this shopping bag because the red poppy is a symbol for Remembrance in Canada.
Although I been busy writing my recent trip to Qingdao, China but I haven’t forgotten my more important job:
art making.
Here are some of my latest shopping bag make over, they are all done since my return from my trip.
Now a day email pretty much replaced the actual mail, I don’t get many mails any more. Gone were the days I would see the mailman making daily delivery to our building but lately we hardly see him. Recently, there are talks of reduce the daily service to three days a week to helps cut cost for Canada Post which inspired me to create this paper cut:
Tortoise Mail”
The more I see art created by computer software the more I wanted to go back to the basic. Lately, I am entertaining the idea of making art with the minimum tools and material.
One day, I was looking at the bare trees (it was still winter) outside an idea came to me: leaves!
That time I was working on paper cut on shopping bags and I thought why not try it on leaf. Since there were no leaves anywhere I then remember the bamboo leaves my mother used for the Dragon Boat Festival:
Every year, to celebrate the festival Mother would make sticky rice bundles which fill with meat, peanuts, salted egg yolk and mushroom and wrap them with bamboo leaves.
A short visit to Chinatown and I was able to found some dry bamboo leaves. A big bundle only cost $3.
The cutting actually was not as difficult as I thought. Here are a couple of my results. limitation is artists’ best friend.
Last year,I meet an artist in San Francisco she was preparing an exhibition in Paris. They were all small paintings on paper, from 6’ to 12” square. She explained it was easy to travel with and her whole show could fit right into a small suitcase.
I really like her idea of storing her art in a box and this idea planted seed in my head.
Early this year, I started to work on my idea of art in a box. The first two were using paper cut with boxes I had found.
Here are the two I made last month:
However, as I continue to think how to create art inside a box and more ideas came. My latest art in a box is evolved from the paper cut ones I did last month but combined with my watercolor painting.
I first painted this owl in the wood and when I was satisfy with how it look I started to cut away part of the background, in order to add more leaves and branches.
Here is my finished art in a box:
“Owl in the wood”, watercolor, paper cut in a Nike shoe box, 9″x12″
alfredngdesign 