Failed illustration? Maybe not...

Raise your hand if you can spot four faces here!

This is a papercut that didn´t turn out quite as expected. At first, I thought it was going to travel directly from my cutting board to the trash bin, but then I accidentaly held it and it sort of decomposed and became a "mobile". Love this kind of surprises!

More photos of the process of making this book here.

Papercut sketching

Here´s a papercut illustration I´m working on. I love papercutting more and more as a medium!

Work hazards

After cutting this illustration the other day I realized that I have a really bad posture. I´m so concentrated on cutting the lines right that I simply forget anything around me, or about me, actually, and that includes how my back is positioned. At the end of the two hour session I realized there was something weird about my muscles and the next day I could hardly move.

I´ve been stretching my back periodically during the day, as well as wearing an extra layer of insulation for warmth; Paulo massaged my back with this weird smelling medicated cream and I can slowly move more and more without grinning. But simple things like sneezing remind me that I´m not fully recovered.

I think that after this warning sign I definitely have to watch my posture (I say as I straight my back).

Some recent work I can show

Sometimes it is frustrating not being able to show the projects I´ve been working on because, well, they´re still projects and they´re still secret. This one, though, I can show. It´s an invitation I made for my youngest niece´s baptism next September. And I´ll attend it!

Her name is Clara, which reminded me of light, which I made the starting point for the papercuts. I worked them on double sided origami paper. Each side has a different, contrasting colour, and this is a feature I love because it brings double results with one cut only. The best part, though, is to frame the originals in one of those see-through (or glass against glass) frames, because just by fliping sides you can get a new papercut.

The whole "making of" sequence is here. Enjoy!

Sketching and subtracting

These past few days have been busy sketching and developing and studies with cut out illustrations. Doing these studies has been a major part of the satisfaction a project gives me and I feel that it is being very helpful on my search to finding a "voice", or a "style" for these characters. I´ve been repeating and repeating studies, trying different combinations of "full" areas (not cut out) and "empty" ones and learning a lot from this process. It´s amazing how much the relationship between shape and background can vary with tiny little changes in what gets subtracted from the paper and what doesn´t.

Really, I´m having a grand time working on this, can you tell?

More pictures of this process here.

Papercut "Irão reforça arsenal nuclear e complica relações diplomáticas com Estados Unidos"

This is an editorial piece made for the call for entries "Sou Ilustrador". Unpublished. The only information given was a title for a potential newspaper article, about Iran´s nuclear reinforcement and how it affects its relationship with the USA. I decided to go with a papercut, a technique that I love more and more as time goes by. I love how its synthetic language forces me to convey the message in very symbolic details. Unfortunately, my work wasn´t chosen, but still I´m really happy with the result.

*

Papercut feito para o concurso "Sou Ilustrador", de carácter editorial. Para o concurso, apenas foi disponibilizada uma frase, o potencial título de um artigo dessa publicação: "Irão reforça arsenal nuclear e complica relações diplomáticas com Estados Unidos".

Apesar do meu trabalho não ter sido escolhido, fiquei muito satisfeita com esta ilustração.

Thank you cards

I´ve been working on a series of "thank you" cards for my shop, all done with cut paper illustrations. I´m loving this tecnhique more and more every single time I do it! It´s still a bit hard on my shoulders and neck but the results are so satisfying that I want to keep cutting more and more paper.

More photos here (more will be added to this set as I upload them).

*

Nos intervalos do "outro" trabalho que tenho estado a fazer (de design gráfico, para clientes), estive a fazer uma série de ilustrações em papel cortado para um novo conjunto de postais para colocar brevemente à venda na minha loja. Cada vez estou a gostar mais de usar a técnica do recorte em papel para ilustrações: por um lado, é o facto de ser uma linguagem minimalista, com apenas duas cores (a do fundo e a do papel); por outro, o facto de poder ter uma expressão de traço bastante rudimentar, por ser cortado com x-acto. Apesar das dores nos ombros e no pescoço com que fico quando faço uma nova ilustração, cada dia estou mais feliz com esta técnica!

Mais fotografias deste conjunto de cartões aqui.

I´m camera-less. My very faithful, always with me digital camera decided to become an impressionist yesterday, after several long years of hard work. I´m sad because it was a present, I´m sad because I was used to it and loved working with it, and mostly sad because apparently it is a defect that Sony is aware of - and still, it appeared after the warranty expired. Now I don´t want to go into the "big corporation" doesn´t care argument here, as apparently Sony US is repairing cameras for free - if you´re in the US. Here in Argentina I was told a huge, bold no and that I would receive a quotation for the repair.

Anyway, this is one of the pictures my camera took while living its impressionist stage:



So that´s why I´m now relying on my laptop´s camera, which of course isn´t neither the most portable camera in the world nor the best quality ever. But still I´m thankful it exists because that way I can show you the papercut I worked on today. I hope to convert it into a card later this week and add it to my shop as soon as possible (but will need a decent camera to photograph the cards, right?).

Making of IF_Breeze

I´ve just uploaded a new series of images with the process of making IF_Breeze´s papercut. To check it out, click here. Hope you enjoy it!

*

Uma nova série de fotografias com o processo de trabalho para a ilustração IF_Breeze, de ontem, foi colocada aqui. Espero que gostem!

IF Breeze

Papercut+digital type for Illustration Friday.

Papercutting

I´ve been working on a paper cut for an editorial illustration. I photographed each step so soon we´ll have a new "making of" series on my flickr.

Have a good weekend!

*

Tenho estado a trabalhar numa ilustração em papel cortado. Como fotografei todo o processo, em breve teremos mais uma série de imagens na colecção "making of" no meu flickr.

Bom fim-de-semana!

Making of Peony

I just posted a new "making of" series of images here. It´s from the other day´s peony papercut. Can you tell that I´m loving peonies this spring?

*

Mora aqui uma nova série "making of" de uma ilustração em papel cortado que fiz a semana passada.

Acho que estou totalmente contagiada por esta febre primaveril que conquistou Buenos Aires, neste momento cheia de jacarandás em flor. Viva a Primavera!

Illustration Friday: Clutter

It has been quite a long time since I last contributed to Illustration Friday, but I´m happy to be back to it.

This is a mixed media illustration with a papercut and hand drawn type, later digitalized.

On my desk

My Wednesday "on my desk" post is actually on Thursday. This has been such a hectic week, and after having busy weekends with friends visiting or travelling to visit friends, days go by without my having time to even post.

I´ve been working on several new design projects for a very good client and that has been filling my days up completely. Whenever I´m waiting for an answer via email, I frame some of the papercuts that I did during the last few months and knit a few more stitches on my very first sock (top-down; I started one toe-up but had a bit of trouble reading the instructions and unfortunately can´t find videos about it...). It´s also my first time knitting with dpn´s and I´m just trying to get hang of it.

See the tea? There it is, as usual!

ETA: I´ve added a button to my side bar so that you can go directly to Kootoyoo´s for more desks.

Illustration Friday: Primitive

This is my piece for this week´s IF topic "Primitive". It´s a papercut and it reads "blessed be big-nosed people", for their sense of smell, a primitive sense. If it´s not more developed within big-nosed people, at least it has more "space" (a big nose) to do.

Yes, I have a big nose. And an extremely acute sense of smell. ;)

*

Aqui está a minha ilustração para "Primitive", o tema desta semana do Illustration Friday.

Mais cedo ou mais tarde ia ter de fazer a devida homenagem a quem, como eu, é narigudo. E a quem, também como eu, tem um olfacto (às vezes demasiado!) apurado.

Porque, para mim, o olfacto é um sentido primitivo.

Happy birthday! | Parabéns!

The birthday boy and the birthday girl have received their papercut birthday cards and now I can finally publish it.

The text in the tree is the portuguese lyrics that go into the "Happy Birthday" song.

See more images of the final result here and some of the process here.


*

Os meninos aniversariantes já receberam os seus respectivos postais no correio e, como tal, posso finalmente pôr uma fotografia dos cartões aqui no blog.

Mais uma vez, um papercut (estou a ficar absolutamente viciada...).

Aqui estão mais fotografias dos cartões e do processo todo, desde o esboço até ao produto acabado.

Have a nice weekend! | Bom fim-de-semana!

This is a collage on me sketchbook with some type that I papercut the other day, when making a birthday card (the one that was on my desk yesterday). The little letters looked so nice and yummy and I just couldn´t throw them into the bin without giving them a bit of use.

It reads "have a nice weekend", or, more literally, "nice weekend".

(I forgot to explain: above it is a saying I learnt from my mother about making the best of what you have, be it time, materials... I have no clue of how I should translate "aproveitar". Any help?)

*

Estas letrinhas foram cortadas de um papercut que fiz para um cartão de feliz aniversário. Eram tão lindas que não as pude deitar directamente no caixote do lixo, sem passar pelo meu caderninho nem receber dois contos.

Um bom fim-de-semana!

On my desk

It´s already Thursday and, once again, I´m a day late blogging about what´s on my desk. Wednesdays are half-work days for me because I have german class the whole morning. One wouldn´t believe how much energy the class drains out from me. Don´t get me wrong, I love to study german and being in class is, despite of tiring, very... (I´m lacking the words here!) every entertaining and interesting and engaging. Yes, maybe that´s the engaging part of it that takes so much energy.

When I get back from german class I only have half a day to go through with projects and the daily chores, so I guess that blogging just comes after all that.

Well, so here´s what was on my desk yesterday: a new papercut (I can´t show more of it just yet because it´s a birthday present) and the usual stuff: my tablet, loads of water, loads of magazines, well, you know what I mean with "loads of". Basically, what looks clear is just the cutting board!

See you next Wednesday and make sure to check out other desks via Kootoyoo.

Back to school | Regresso às aulas

Well, "back to school" is a way of putting it. Really, I´m back to german class, after the summer break. I´m happy about it because somehow this incredibly logical language is like assembling a puzzle or solving a sudoku game. At least, that´s how I see it.

And here´s the papercut illustration to celebrate it!


*

"Regresso às aulas"... de alemão! Não é propriamente um regresso à escola, mas sim um regresso às aulas de alemão. Estudar alemão é um desafio tão grande: a língua de Goethe não tem nada do intuitivo que (para mim) tem o português. Aliás, só aprendi gramática portuguesa quando tive de estudar a alemã...

Enfim, para celebrar o regresso ao estudo, aqui está a minha ilustração, também em papel cortado.

Making of "Garden"

I posted some photos here about the "making of" yesterday´s "Garden" papercut, along with some directions. Enjoy!

*

Pus no flickr algumas fotografias tiradas ontem, para ilustrar o passo-a-passo da ilustração "Garden", em papel cortado. Espero que gostem!