Papercutting

What is Papercutting?

Papercutting comes in many different names: Scherenschnitte (German), Kirigami, Kiri-e, Mon-kiri or Senga (Japanese), Sen-shi, Jian zhi or Hua Yang (Chinese), Wycinanki (Polish), Mizrah (Hebrew), Papel Picado (Spanish), Decoupeur (French)or Papytomania (American English). This ancient art is seeing an exciting resurgence in the arts community. I create my papercuts a little differently from some of the traditional methods. Instead of using scissors, I use an exacto-knife to carve out my pictures from a single sheet of bristol board. I use a subtractive method, in which removing paper reveals the image. Some of my most recent cuts are below. Most of these were originally created as gifts for friends. Beneath the images are links to some of my favorite papercut artists on Etsy.

Recent Papercuttings