Paper cutting technique: Further development

The past couple of days I have been continuing with the making of different characters, that I can place in scenes later on in the project. As I had focused a lot on social aspects of their lives in Trinidad, It was important for me to explore making worker men.  Looking through my collection of photos, I was drawn to the trinidadian man with the orange hat and cigarette. These features would make it easier for me to create a character within a scene. I was still determined to leave out details of the face as I had done with the trinidadian shoppers. 

(Sketchbook Page).

I carried on with the layering technique I had started to use in previous papercut people. Similar to the lady with the pinstripe dress, I started to paint on patterns straight onto the paper to make them identifiable as my own.  However, I do not think this has been quite as successful as the previous experiment. This is most probably because I have made the baseball cap out of patterned paper, and they clash a little. The patterned paper (Origami) is actually very effective as it gives the papercut that 1950s glamour that I had researched into at the beginning. I am curious to continue with the patterned paper to save time and experiment to see if they get a better response from my peers.

Next I decided to make papercut characters of my grandparents as a pait, as I realised I had not yet done this. Again looking through the archive of images I have. I decided to use this image as reference as I think it epitomises how stereotypical they were as a young couple in the 1950s- Both looking incredibly smart and chic at social occasions. 

I also realised that I have not yet demonstrated how I make each papercut...Here are a few images taken whilst making an image of my grandmother....

Using the image I have drawn straight onto tracing paper, I trace out the shapes needed for each layer. Usually I will work out the number of layers I need as I cut out shapes for the head, hair, clothes ect. This is turning out to be a lengthy process.

Below is an experiment I undertook after making these two papercuts. I needed a method to document my papercuts whilst in progress that wasn't just white paper, and these plant pots seemed like a playful way to suggest that they were in a tropical rainforest.  Obviously the photographic quality of this image is fairly poor. However, this opened up another possibility for displaying my work....