Rotkäppchen

Okay, it's for sale. I'll make prints soon though! Go here for to buy.

I thought I'd try my hand at doing a series. I got these vintage frames the other day and wanted to place something in them and I kept thinking, Red Riding Hood, Red Riding Hood. So I followed the voices in my head and did a papercut.


I looked up Red Riding Hood on Wikipedia and the story is sort of like how when you're a little kid you miss all the innuendos in Grease. Well, I missed all the innuendos in Red Riding Hood. In the original stories, she is swayed by the wolf and gets in bed with him before he eats her. There is no hunter to save her. She messes with the wolf, she dies.


I like the above picture the best. They are having such a good time smelling those flowers.


In light of the fact that my parent's dog just died and they just shot that tiger in the San Francisco zoo, I had a little bit of a hard time with this last image. That wolf was just doing what he does best.


These are small, about 3.5" x 5". I might try to sell them on Etsy. I sort of want to hoard them for myself though.

Etsy Virgin!

I put up my first stuff on Etsy this weekend! I wonder to myself, "Why didn't I do this sooner?" Visit http://cindymindypindy.etsy.com

I'm in love with this little deer papercut that I did. It's so teeny and fragile.


Here's some little elephants, not quite as teeny as the deer one, but still pretty teeny.

Leaving Las Vegas

Before my parents moved out of my childhood home in Las Vegas, I snapped a few pictures of the things I loved about the area. One of my favorite birds in the area is the Mourning Dove and luckily they were perched in abundance on a telephone pole right in our front yard. This picture of this scherenschnitt looks a lot cooler than what it actually turned out like, but it still looks pretty great in real life.

Princes in the Tower

Today is Alex' birthday and when I was over there in England, he mentioned that it would be interesting to do a silhouette book of the Princes in the Tower. Of course I needed to be educated about who exactly these princes were, but thought "Sure, that would be interesting." In my head, the silhouettes on either side, with the stairs going into their mouths of Richard III and Henry VII, would be a little more prominent. If I were to do it all again, I'd make them a little more scary. I like how the princes turned out though.

The post office told me the present wouldn't make it there until Friday, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that it had made it on the day of his birth. His postman put it in the bathroom window instead of the mail slot, so luckily it didn't fall in the toilet!

O Tannenbaum!

So I mentioned I was going to London for Christmas, right? Anyway, I am visiting my friend Alex and we're going to his mother's for Christmas. I thought, what am I going to get for his mom? Of course I decided to make a papercut for her. I didn't make this idea up though, it's patterned after the style of Cindy McKeen. My mom has a few of her laser cut trees and borders and I thought Alex' mom might like one. (Sorry, Cindy, for kyping your style, I just didn't have time to purchase one!)

Silhouettes on the Shade

Last month I did a few mockups for Modern Bride to possibly be featured in an upcoming magazine. One of the ones I did had a silhouette theme. I used the profiles of my friends Crystal and Edan for the invite. I had these great little frames from Ikea and thought, "Hey, I already have their profiles, I'll just make them this cute Christmas present!" So I did and I think they turned out great!

I'll make one for you, too! Just e-mail me (cindy at cindyferguson.com) and send me pictures of your profiles and I'll send you my address where you can send payment.

Price: $30 each.

Baba Yaga Calendar

So for Christmas cards/gifts this year, I made a calendar for people. I did a drawing of Baba Yaga. It sort of looks like a scherenschnitte, but it's not really. Merry Christmas!

Oh, and if you want one, email me your request (cindy at cindyferguson.com) and I'll send you my address. Price: $15 includes shipping and handling. I have them in blue too!

Rooks

I'm going to England for Christmas and wanted to make my host a papercut for a present. I don't think he looks at this site, but if he does, Merry Christmas Alex!

Hawk On The Wire

So I stumbled upon this bird blog that is run by John Dempsey in England. It is updated pretty regularly and I saw this image of a hawk sitting on a telephone post (November 17, 2007) and thought that it would make a great scherenschnitte. So I made one. There's another image of some rooks that I'm going to do that will kick hiney too.

Thank You Cards

I thought, this being the holiday season, it might be a good time to remind people that I had some great Thank You cards available for purchase. Want some?

These aren't actual papercuts, but they are papercut inspired and illustrated by me! I've got sets of 5 for $7.50 (add $1.50 s/h for each set). E-mail me at cindy@cindyferguson.com and I'll e-mail you my address and you can send me some lucre.

Size: 5.5" x 4.25" (A2 card with envelope)

Colors: Cream or robin's egg blue. All with black silhouette.

Squirrel Scherenschnitte

So last April, I went with my friend Dan out to Port Townsend for a visit. Surprisingly, there's a lot to see out there. We went to this park and I looked up and saw this squirrel climbing across small delicate branches and it silhouetted so well that I took a picture and tried to recreate it. Drawing and cutting branches like these gives me a newer and greater appreciation for nature. Even though I did a lot of little cuts, this papercut is nowhere near as intricate as the glory that is around us everywhere. It took me so long to cut out that I nearly went blind.

Tree Scherenschnitte

My friend Sarah won the free give-away of a scherenschnitte on my other blog for the 50,000th visitor. She also allowed me to stay in her house for two weeks while I looked for an apartment. I figure she really deserves one of these. When I asked her what she wanted, she said a tree and then sited this poem:

Another Sarah for Christopher Smart
by anne porter

When winter was half over
God sent three angels to the apple-tree
Who said to her
"Be glad, you little rack
Of empty sticks,
Because you have been chosen.

In May you will become
A wave of living sweetness
A nation of white petals
A dynasty of apples."

I'd like to think this is the apple tree right before it shoots out it's blossoms and is just done with being a rack of empty sticks.

Silhouette of the Artist on a Friday Night

The length is right, the height is wrong. my head should be a little bigger and my legs a little thicker to be accurately proportioned in this scherenschnitte silhouette of me last Friday night when my plans fell through and I tried using Redbox for the first time and couldn't get Transformers, but could get Evan Almighty and it was a nice movie.

How To Scherenschnitte

So my friend works at the Gallery of Contemporary Art, UCCS, and asked me to make a How-to video of papercutting. Here I talk about different types of paper, tools and techniques I use in the art of papercutting.



Here's the template used in the above video. Enjoy*! Download Free Squirrel Scherenschnitte.


*But don't enjoy it too much, please feel free to make this cutout for personal use and gifts for friends, but selling it is just bad karma. I used my brain to make this, use yours to make your own. Copywrite 2007: Cindy Ferguson

Reversibles!

I made this one from a template and didn't mess up the white, so now I have two scherenschnittes of birds!



This one is modeled after some taxidermied birds I saw last summer when I went to the Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.

Worship the Nut

It's been a while, sorry! I finally moved into my apartment and got everything put away and now I can make squirrel scherenschnitte to my heart's content. This was made in anticipation of an exciting video that I will be posting within the next week. Check back soon!

Learning How To Papercut

This post is nice because it also updates my Goose Girl blog. I haven't been able to do any papercuts because of various reasons—reading Harry Potter, getting ready for the garage sale, recovering from the garage sale—I think this will help me get back into the swing of things.

A little while ago, I got a disc of patterns for Scherenschnitte from a member of my scherenschnitte yahoo group that I haven't been very active in. I used these templates to help teach my Family Home Evening group how to papercut. They all did very well.

Here's Andy's. He did the 3 Blind Mice.


Terry did a good one of a kitten getting into a fish bowl.


Kristina made some pelicans.


Joseph won the award for skinniest cut with his Tom Sawyer papercut.


Meredith took to scherenschnitte like a fish takes to water.


Oh my gosh, I did some unicorns.


Stacy made some cute kitties.


I made the beginnings of a squirrel garland.


And Sharon, the newest member of our group, took on one of the toughest patterns and did an excellent job. She's going to take the rest of the templates to her second grade class for an activity.


After all that hard work, we needed some sustenance. Andy and I went to Burgermaster and ate some tasty burgers.


Burgers are so tasty!

Flowers for Claire

A long time ago Claire commissioned me to make some flowers for her and because I'm so on top of things, I've finally gotten around to it a year later. I don't know if this is what she had in mind, but they are scherenschnitte of flowers from her sister's garden. If you don't like them, Claire, no purchase necessary. I really like how the Columbines turned out.

32

I took a picture of some birds sitting on a wire outside of the Hilltop Service Station on Capitol Hill right across from Sonic Boom. It was my 32nd birthday (way back in March) and I thought what a great scherenschnitte this would make.

Harlequin Beetle

Acrocinus longimanus

Threadwing Ant Lion

Nemoptera sinuata

Corn Thrips

Frankliniella occidentalis

All I can say about this scherenschnitte is that Kristina Westbrook is a genius and don't try to cut those little wings in bad light. I would be interested in seeing one of these in real life someday.

Mayfly

Ephemera danica

Because You're One of My Favorites

Brigham turned 30 today and he has a nice friend, Sariah, who sent out little postcards to all his friends and asked them to create some art on them and send them to him. Without letting him know what it was for, I text messaged him asking what kind of papercut he would like. He replied that he would like a giant squid fighting the grim reaper and a shark, or just a giant squid. I opted to have the giant squid fight the shark. Happy Golden Birthday Brigham!

Crane Fly Scherenschnitte

I went to stake conference today and chose to sit in the back of the room on the stage so that I could hunker up and cut out some insects rather than stare at all the people as I am wont to do. It helps me listen, really, it does.

Tipula longicornis

Timberman Scherenschnitte

Acanthocinus aedilis

I'm Ready For the Drop, Joe

It's taken me forever to get around to it, but I've finally finished the Cherry tree scherenschnitte I had promised to create for Joe to trade for some of his art. I hope you guys like it!


Claire, yours is up next!

Kids Silhouette

I wanted to try my hand at the silhouette. This weekend I went to visit my old friend from home, Melanee, and her family. I did one of her 5- and 3-year olds. I think they turned out pretty good. I haven't done profiles of little kids and they are harder to draw because their proportions aren't the same as ours. This gave me a lot of respect for the guy who did my silhouette in Salzburg who just did it with scissors in five minutes.

Wild Swans

Hans Christian Andersen wrote one of my favorite stories called The Wild Swans. It's about a princess who has a wicked stepmother, as most princesses do. She also has 11 brothers who the wicked stepmother turns into swans. After doing that she banishes the princess to live with peasants in the forest. Somehow she finds out she's a princess and that the way to undo the curse on her brothers is to make them shirts of stinging nettle. If anyone has ever felt the sting of nettle, it's not fun. The catch is that she has to do this without speaking a word until she's done. Of course while she's making the shirts, a king falls in love with her and marries her. The townspeople think she's a witch and just as they're about to burn her, she finishes the shirts and frees her brothers and her tongue and proclaims herself innocent of witchery and everyone lives happily ever after. I love that story.

I cheated with the shirts and made a net and there are only 6 swans instead of 11, it's okay. Don't cry about it.

P.S. I fell on the bus and sprained my hand/wrist and it just now healed. I'm still worried I might have carpal tunnel syndrome, but not as much.

Birds on a Wire

I got this little vertical frame from the thrift store (6"x3.5") that I had no idea what to do with. I've been wanting to do some birds on wires for a while and thought this would be the perfect frame for them. I'm trying something new and using aged paper in the background. I know this isn't archival, but neither is the frame. I think, with my sophomoric knowledge of blade use, that doing the birds on a wire bigger would be better in the future.

40th & Corliss

7 a.m.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea

I did this seahorse scherenschnitte a while ago but forgot to post it. I think the horse turned out really pretty. I love the fins.

Crows Scherenschnitte

I love to look at the shapes of trees in the winter, they are so intricate. They remind me of when my friend Kellie tried to teach me about the chaos theory.

Music & Lyrics

I'm going to go see a movie tonight with one of my top 5 friends. We're going to see Music and Lyrics. I made her a ballerina scherenschnitte. I hope she loves it!



I didn't concept this one myself though, I stole the idea from Threadless. It works so perfectly for Erin though.

Bear Murdering Puma Scherenschnitte

Here's one for my unrequited love ex-boyfriend Damian. The bear is not actually murdering the puma, but he's about to.