Rob Ryan is a British visual artist specializing in papercutting and screen-printing.

I have been look at his works for long time and totally love it. Each piece of his works is very delicate, but it takes long time to finish. This time, I will challenge myself to do something that I passion about, which I have never done before.

I spent about 2:30 hours to finish it. and it is not as long as I expect, but it need very good construction which need to connect each little details together like spider web, otherwise, some parts will fall down.

After the paper cutting, I feel like to do more, It gave me a new interest that I would love to do for my new project. I might need to practice more, but I am glad that I have a new style for my work.

The reason why I choice it is because I very like the hand made work since I got the “Paper craft” book. I am totally in love with this kind of hand made crafts. The way how they explore the art from paper. Their skills always raised my admiration. The more I look at the more I want to be part of them. So I am very appreciate at this unit that we can do anything we want.

In order to choose what is the subject going to be my Independent project, I have look at different artists including the artists who do the hand made works.

Sanna annukka is an illustrator & printmaker with a refreshing love of nature and folklore. So most of her work is reflect from the nature. When I look at her work, it reminds me Rob ryan’s works, which are put emphasize on a part even is very small and very detail.

“The Shaman’s Tepee” is the image in Black and White. The scene of the tepee surrounding by the forest, sun and birds. It looks like sunset, which associate one of our projects “Time” in 2nd year. At that unit, I document the symbols of flowers in12 months(4), but it is not very good.

So I would like to do it again if I got one more chance.

Also I looked up Emma Rios (3) who is a paper artist as Rob Ryan (2). I think it help me when I look at different artist who doing the similar works, Which can give me more idea how to create a special work from paper.

I have drew the brainstorm, and came up with “World evaluation” and “Four Season” concept.But I prefer the four season because it is easier to explore how to represent it. What’s more, I can change colour smoothly when the season change. And use some subjects that will associate the season, like ice cream is represented summer. The other two-circle pattern is the experiment that I imitate Sanna anukka’s work.

How to represent it?- Children book.- A large sale of picture to show the season change slowly.- Toy theatre.

SUBJECTS/CONTENT/THEMES

Children books, Large scale image, Stage model

Media/FORMS

Paper craft, Drawing, Illustration

AUDIENCE (s)

Children, Students, Graphic students

RESEARCH

Illustration, Magazine, Book, Blog, Website

SKILLS

Book making, Layout, Illustration, Drawing skill, Cutting skill

These are all the hand made works. Image one and the left below one is the works from “The Assembly” Their website page (1) is very pretty which is making a scene through hand made subjects. And there one below is called “Hay Festival”. They cut out the leaves and letters from the book.

Picture 2 is a woman sitting on the chair surrounding by the books table and a long scale of image that put from paper. It’s called “The Evil Twins: The writer’s story”.

Picture 3 is the work from Alex Ostowski who help YCN to design the book cover by making many little trees from paper.

The 4th Picture is Installations and interior design for west London bookshop. It showing a girl is drowning.

These pictures are very helpful for my project that give me the idea of how to show the work from paper, and how to frame the scene.

I am going to present four season through paper cutting. And might show it in a box which like the toy theatre. Here is some practice for my pa-per cutting. And I have shown them when I had the group meeting with Luke on Monday (1/11),

Feedback:- How can I put the different scale of subjects together, and how does it work? -Also it might be too much to finish all the sea-sons, and it would be better that I just concentrate on one seasons, and finish the rest of them in FMP.

Question I need to consider:-How big of the box I am going to make? -How to present the season through the box?-Which season I am going to choose?

I scan the image and use photoshop to edit them, scale down the figure and balance with the house.Think it would better would like this scale.

After the meeting, I think it would be better if I draw on the paper instead of just doing the paper cutting, which might help me to measure what size of the objects going to be and positioning. The picture at the top one with trees, birds and sunny sun is spring. The bottom is winter as you can see the Santa is flying on the sky in a snowing day. However, I found out it is hard to draw different layout through one page. So I start to do some research about how to layout.

In order to sort out the problem I decided go to London to find some inspiration. I went to the pollock’s toy museum, which Luke introduces me. The structure of the toy theatre is very helping me. Then I went to Rob Ryan’s exhibition to improve my cutting skill. I took some pictures of the landscape in coven garden, think it might help me the layout problem.

1. Forest (Commissioned by the YCN Agency in London for their 08/09 Yearbook) -Eve Duhamel 2. Buenos Vecinos- Good Neihborhood -Bombo! (AKA Maurizio Santucci)3. Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration -Thereza Rowe

To sort out the problem, I did a lot of research and these three images as you can see they are layout from simple to complicate, not only the positioning but the colour as well.

Lizzie Finn’s unique and stylistically sophisticated artwork encapsulates a love of materials and visual colloquialisms within a language of contemporary design. I am very like her work which is very unique and it gave me the idea that it doesn’t have to be paper, which can be fabric or any other material.

Poster by Chris bianchi. This long scale black and white image is device to three part but in a smooth way which might help my project if I am making the image that about four season changing.

Group meeting on Monday (8/11) with LukeFeedback:Lots of research but no practice will cause the progress slow down.

Thing I need to consider:- Start to do some handwork.- Which season I am going to choose?- How to present the season through the box?- How to layout the position?

Question I have sort out:- Which season I am going to choose?Spring.

After I did a lot of research and think about how to present the Spring, I think the positioning of layout is not important anymore. Because it is not worth to spend too much time on it. And I already did some research, which help me a lot. So I start to experiment my paper cutting and try to put them together as a scene. These images are scanned, so the objects behind are blurred.

The top one is magazine. I tried on the magazine because it is thinner than a normal book and big-ger size, then I cut the frame from it and inserted some colour paper that already cut into some shapes in. It is quite nice but the paper is easy to come out, also it is flexible so the paper inside is easy to break.

The bottom book is a novel book, which is

thicker, compare with the magazine. At this time, I tried to cut the objects out from the book. But it is hard to keep the object perfect due to I need to cut one object through a lot of page at same time. So its edge is very rough.

After these two experiments, The better way to do is use the thicker book as a frame and insert the paper that already have cut into the book.

Question I have sort out:- How to present the season through the box?Using the feature of spring to make a scene.

12/11 Friday, Went to the Publisher Book Fair at London.Got inspiration from:

1. How do I love Thee? by Sarah Bodman.2.Robo Girlby Mette-Sofie D. Ambeck

The first book is very interesting which is cut-ting the letter and pattern from and each paper and through the image you can see the very nice images that made by repeating flowers. However, this very cute book have a horror story at the last page. But anyway, it is very nice.

The Robo Girl made from many layer of papers. It is very nice which gave me the idea of how to make my paper cutting in a fun way.

After the book fair, I start work on the drawing once I got home. This is a scene of spring that stands on a half-circle of planet. I try to make two layers to the window of the house which is similar as “Robo Girl”.

Then base on the previous image, I devised them into different page in order to sort the layout and complete the subject that might cover by the oth-ers. About the half circle, except the reason that I want it to be half of the earth, it might make the space not as crowd.

I have spent a whole day to make this, the layer of the subjects is worked not as good. And the colour is too much. Seems very busy in a frame, and don’t know where to look at. The book looks very rough at the edge. Thing I need to consider:-Colour-Layout-Cutting skill

When I walked on the street of London, I found out the window display is very interesting that always give you some new ideas, While I saw the Liberty one(left side) , it is a giant part of tree-trunk that display some goods on. And the right one is a clothes shop and showing a rabbit clam on the tree, which are all imitate cut from the paper of book.

It is just little display, but gave me inspira-tion that If I want to put a tree into my book, it doesn’t have to be a whole tree, even a part of tree still can be good or even better.

So after the London trip, I start to draw the idea from my head, it is about the tree-trunk with a big whole, which you can see spring through the hole, lots of colourful flowers is blooming. And there are some animal play around near the tree, also a woman behind the tree who represent “Spring sister”.

I used better quality of colour paper as new experiment and it is better that using the thinner paper. The object that I cut out can stand very well, and it is not easy to break when I cut the detail area.

For the last experiment, it was too colourful in the book, so I try to reduce to use too much bright colour and emphasize the tree hole which is the point of “Spring”. Then I used very dark

colour for the most of the area but the flowers. And used very bright yellow, orange and red to make flowers, which showing the strong contract and easy to focus on the point.

When I brought the half finished book to meet Mike, he said this book is better than last one (got a half circle), it is not as crowed as before. The colour combination is very good, can con-trol which part should be bright and which part should be dark.

But:-Maybe can get rid of the woman, because it might be too crowed if you add a woman at be-hind.-Think about who is the audience, and maybe can add some words if it’s children book.

The three pictures at left side is the progress of how I work on flower-Daisy, I put the round white cotton at the middle of flower in order to make it more lifelikeness.

These three different kinds of flowers are bloomed during spring. I think they are the symbol of spring, which are including Daisy, Daffodils and Tulip.

This is a half finished book which need to improve more, but still need to keep it simple, otherwise would be too much again.

I think about what did mike say, and I will take off the woman behind, also, this book is gonna be a children book, and it is about spring, What I think, it’s better to put some words at the background, but not too much. So I looked up the Children poem is about the season- spring.

I talked about I will put the poem at the background. The reason why I choose the poem- “Spring” by Kaitlyn Guenther is because the context itself is very close to my theme and objects that I made such as “so many flowers are blooming.” And “Petite little squirrel come out to play.”

The feature of the poem is each first letter of the sentence are combined the word “spring”.

These images are the progress how I work on the last page-poem. I have to flip horizontal the letter in order to write them on the paper and cut it. So when it flip over again, it looks like the last image at the left side.

Half finished outcome. The tree trunk is became more detail. The red flower at the back is removed to get more space for the letter.

Book cover is cut to a frame. The bottom is stuck the letter “SPRING!”.

In order to express the meaning of poem “Really big bears awake from their slumbers.” I changed the rabbit to a bear that playing with the butterfly when he awake in spring. And get rid of the mushroom which is made the frame more clear.

Because the bird is stuck on the mushroom, so I made the new layer that is a bird standing on the wood.

I tried to cut two sentence of poem and see the effect.

I have changed the letter at the background; these three sentence is conformed to the scene that I made. My major audience is the children. Except this three sentence of poem, I will put the complete poem at the backside of the book. So they can understand the whole poem with the three-dimension image.

This is a final outcome of a “spring” book. It is a book cut as a frame and has a layer of paper that have cut into different subjects with a transparent in the cover of the book. It is kind of fantasy that you can see through the tree hole that bright flowers are blooming in spring. And bear comes out from the slumber; squirrel and bird are playing and singing. Three sentence of poem are showing at the background, which is “So many flowers are blooming; little squirrel come out to play; big bear awake from their slumbers.” I also put the whole poem at the backside of the book in order to let the children understand more.

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Group meeting

Indivisual meeting

Presentation

Working

Final stage

Action

Date24/10

I am doing the season’s book that represents a three-dimension scene inside a frame of book. And spring is one of the seasons I have chosen to explore. During this time, I did a lot of research and go to the exhibition, which is gave me different ideas to improve my project. I am very passion for the hand made work, so I am very pleased that I used paper cutting to do with my work.

This term is harder than what we do for last year, which is running two projects at the same time. I was not sure who is my intend audience and how can I start with this project. But as I keep seeing the tutor and talk to the other student of my project and researching, I start to collect the ideas and develop them. I had got stuck of how to positioning the layout, but I resolved it by repeat the experiments. Children book is my favorite thing to do with, which means the Children is my major intended audience.

It is hard and stress to do both of projects, but I have learned how to manage the time between them and how to reflect my work and analysis the feedback from tutor. I am very enjoying for doing this and hopefully will make a better work for the rest of seasons as my final major project.

My final major project is going to be a set of four seasons children books which are represented layers of visual language paper cutting with a season poem inside a frame of book. These books could be a set collection and decoration, but the main thing is Children book. The intended audience is Children and Parents also the Art bookstore. And what I going to do next is do some research on Children’s books and some 3D works to help me how to layout the book better. Also the artist does the hand made work such as paper cutting. Because it is very inspire me to explore more.