Hearts and Flowers

St Valentines day, The 14th of February is fast approaching, so I have spent some time in the last couple of days thinking about hearts and flowers.  If you have been reading my posts over the last few months, you will know that I have a liking for simple black and white.  Either by creating black and white line drawings, or by paper cutting, I like making things where colour is minimised and pattern and form are everything.  I started my hearts and flowers theme along these lines.

Hearts and Flowers by Karen Mehta

Once the drawing was finished I wanted to experiment with some colour but keep the original black and white.  To do this I scanned the drawing into my computer and then used some software with my graphics tablet to add colour.

Hearts and Flowers 1 by Karen Mehta

Hearts and Flowers 2 by Karen Mehta

Here are two variations created in this way, and I have altered the size and shape of the background to allow for different greetings card dimensions.  Who will you be making Valentines greeting for?

Paper Cutting (2)

Hi All,
So in my first post this year I am picking up again with paper cutting.  I have been sorting through my work, and took a piece I cut a few years back to be framed.  It took around 100 hours to produce so it seemed wrong to hide it away.  This is a big deal for me!  Although I make all these things, I sometimes feel self-conscious about my work, and often when I finish something, it just gets put away and never sees the light of day again.  So taking the finished cut to the framers means definitely taking the step of hanging or or selling it, not sure which.  So here it is in all its framed glory… it's called English Orchard.

English Orchard by Karen Mehta

I have taken a couple of close-up pictures, so hopefully you can see that in the framing process we have sandwiched the cut between two pieces of glass.  Its not immediately obvious from a distance, but up closer you can see a subtle shadow that is cast by the cut onto the mount board, I really like the effect.

I'll be cutting some more in the next few weeks, I love the simplicity of colour and intricacy of form in the finished designs.