The Circle

Oops, it's been a month again since I blogged.  A few things that happened:

I won a $100 Merit Award for my piece "Emerge" at the Bay Annual at the Visual Arts Center of Northwest Florida!

I had two of my drawing/papercuts published in the GAP Annual.  (Guild of American Papercutters)  I was so honored to be included, and to be featured next to paper cutters that I've admired was amazing!

I created these two paper cut landscape commissions for a client in Virginia:

I drew a commissioned portrait of two pastors from their wedding photo from many years ago.  It was a gift from their church.  (And I did it from a very blurry photo!)

And last, but hopefully not least, I've combined my art with my hooping.  I've been hoop dancing for over 5 months, and it has brought me so much joy, with an added bonus of great exercise!  So I've made some little ink, watercolor, and paper cut pieces.  I've put all of them for sale on my Etsy:  www.etsy.com/shop/HeatherClementsArt

*SOLD

Green Tip #21:  Thoughtful gift-giving.  The holidays are coming, so make thoughtful choices on the items you buy, and how much you buy.  The mass hysteria from Black Friday sends shivers down my spine.  Consumerism is at such a high that people are willing to literally trample one another for a sale on some item possibly made by children at slave wages on the other side of the planet.  An item that will not bring anybody real happiness.  Because of the rough economy, the stress of buying gifts, and the over-consumerism of it all, many families have opted to have gift-free holidays.  They have expressed how wonderful it was not to stress about what to get who, and how much money they have to spend to do so.  They enjoyed gathering with loved ones and sharing experiences and food.  If you do want to give gifts, make wise choices.  Know where it was made, and what it's made of.  Or make gifts.  I make gifts all the time and people appreciate a hand-made gift SO much more than a store-bought one.  With the internet you can look up ideas on what to make and instructions on how to make it.

Thank you blog-visitors!!!

-Heather

"Emerge" Charcoal Drawing

New drawing!  Yes, a drawing again, no paper-cutting on this one.  Honestly, I don't know what my future art will be.  (Who does?)  I feel that I'm not done with paper cutting, but it may take the back seat for a while.  Of course, now that I've built up a reputation as a paper-cutter, I have to go and change all that and confuse everyone.  Maybe.  Sigh.  We'll just have to wait and see!

Forget about the future, let's focus on the present.  Presently, this is my most recent piece of art.  It is called, "Emerge."  The background is the color of the paper itself, so I used both chalk and charcoal for this piece.  (If you remember, that's one of my favorite mediums!... Who am I kidding, what isn't?)

The inspiration for the concept of this piece was the model's tattoo.  (The model is yet again my good friend, Carrie.)  She has a simple leaf contour tattoo on her shoulder.  So I thought, "What if her back was covered in leaf tattoos that when touched by her hands began to come to life?"  And that's pretty much what I did.

"Emerge" chalk and charcoal, 18" x 24", by Heather Clements, 2013.

"Emerge" (detail) chalk and charcoal, 18" x 24", by Heather Clements, 2013.

"Emerge" (detail) chalk and charcoal, 18" x 24", by Heather Clements, 2013.

"Emerge" (detail) chalk and charcoal, 18" x 24", by Heather Clements, 2013.

Here is a little video of images from the process of this piece.

Inspiration Source #20:  Etereas / Animation Shortfilm - Hoop Video. As some of you may know, for the past four months I have been learning hoop dancing.  I've always loved to dance, and the hoop has opened new windows of learning, experimentation, fun, and great exercise.  The following video is the most phenomenal expression of hooping I have seen, and I have been watching PLENTY of hooping videos.  AND it features two famous, amazing hoopers, including my old college roommate, Brecken Rivara!  The video is beautiful, unique, and enthralling.  Even if you don't care about hooping, you MUST watch it.

Etereas / Animation Shortfilm from Flaminguettes on Vimeo.



Thank you oh so much for visiting my blog!  If you like my art, and would like to help support it, share this blog with your friends!


-Heather

Embrace III and Playing Blog Catch-up

I get a big slap on the wrist for not blogging in over a month.  But I've been busy, I swear!  Let's see, what has happened since I last blogged...

• I had jury duty for a week.
• I taught a paper cutting workshop at the Arts and Design Society of Fort Walton Beach.  We had a great time cuttin' up.
• I entered two pieces into the Central Panhandle Fair and won Best of Show!

• The other piece won an honorable mention.

• Both pieces got a lot of votes for People's Choice, too!  One of them was 2nd place, and the other was a runner up.
• I finally went to Tallahassee for Railroad Square's First Friday Art Walk.
• I have been working on a portrait commission that I can't share with you for a while because it is going to be a a surprise Christmas present.  But it was super fun to do!
• We had our annual street party at CityArts and it was a blast!  Check out some more photos from the event here.  I spent a lot of time working on the shadow puppet theater, and promoting.  So that's where some of my time went.

• I volunteered to do a kids eco art tent at World Paddle for the Planet.  We made kinetic birds out of recycled materials, and it was a lot of fun!

• And last, but hopefully not least, I made a new piece of art.  It was going to be another drawing and paper-cut combo, but this piece demanded to just be a drawing, so I obeyed.  Here it is:

"Embrace III" graphite on paper, 18"x24", by Heather Clements, 2013

"Embrace III" (detail) graphite on paper, 18"x24", by Heather Clements, 2013

"Embrace III" (detail) graphite on paper, 18"x24", by Heather Clements, 2013

And here's a couple images of the progress:

Progress of "Embrace III" by Heather Clements.

Progress of "Embrace III" by Heather Clements

Green Tip #20:  Collaborative Consumption.  With the internet, many doors opened.  One of those doors is world-wide collaborative consumption.  We now have the power of collaboration and sharing through network technologies, transforming business, consumerism, trust amongst strangers, and the way we live.  We no longer feel the need to own so much stuff as we do the experience from it.  And we no longer each need to own our own separate car, clothes, and tools; we can share them.  Watch this TED talk about the revolution of consumerism that not only encourages trust and sharing, but a smaller carbon footprint.

Thank you for visiting my blog even though I've been bad about posting for the past month!

-Heather

Merge: Charcoal + Cut Paper

The idea for the medium of this piece came from a small mistake.  I was editing "Embrace" in Photoshop.  It's a graphite drawing combined with a white paper cut.  I accidentally hit the key command to invert the image (so black became white and white became black.)  All of a sudden it looked like a white chalk drawing on black paper, with a black paper cut on top.  BAM, idea hatched.

I first drew with white chalk on black paper in high school, and fell in love instantly.  For those of you who don't know much about drawing, drawing with white on top of black is like drawing in reverse.  Instead of marking where the darker areas are, you mark where the light is.

So here is what I ended up with:

"Merge" 16"x20", chalk and charcoal on black paper, hand-cut paper, by Heather Clements, 2013.

"Merge" (detail) 16"x20", chalk and charcoal on black paper, hand-cut paper, by Heather Clements, 2013.

"Merge" (detail) 16"x20", chalk and charcoal on black paper, hand-cut paper, by Heather Clements, 2013.

"Merge" (detail) 16"x20", chalk and charcoal on black paper, hand-cut paper, by Heather Clements, 2013.

Here was the drawing before I added the paper cut:

Then I created a paper cut layer that I ended up not using.  It was too bold and thick.  It completely flattened the arms and hands, obscuring the individual fingers.  So I decided to scrap that paper cut and create another one with finer lines and more detail.  I am so glad I did, because with the new paper cut the hands kept their depth and the finer lines worked so much better on top of the drawing.  Below you'll see the first version on the left, and the second and final one on the right.

BEFORE

AFTER

MUCH better, right?

In other news, I broke 500 likes on my Facebook page!  Woohoo!  Thank you to all who have liked my page!


Inspiration Source #20: THIS:

Thank you, people of the internet, for spending some time here with me on my art blog.

-Heather

"Embrace II" and the Steps to Make It

This new piece experienced quite an evolution.  At first, it was just going to be like the previous piece, with a paper cut on top of a drawing.  But this piece wanted something a little different.

Let me walk you through it, step by step.

Step 1: sketch ideas that come from the magical and elusive land of creativity
Step 2: choose favorite idea
Step 3: photograph my lovely friend, Carrie, for reference photos
Step 4: have husband, Mat, help by holding the light aimed at Carrie
Step 5: fire Mat, he's been deemed the worst studio assistant ever
Step 6: manage to get a good photo anyway
Step 7: upload photos, and look through them over and over
Step 8: choose best photo to work from
Step 9: edit photo in a way that makes it a good drawing reference
Step 10: alter sketch based on photo
Step 11: draw!

Step 12: draw more!

Step 13: realize the hand needs to overlap the paper cut, oh no, what do I do???

Step 14: grow a pair, cut out drawing

Step 15: trace drawing!

Step 16: draw really hard over the lines on the tracing paper

Step 17: turn tracing paper over on top of new piece of paper, rub pencil onto new piece

Step 18: sketch outlines of paper cut layer

Step 19: cut out paper

Step 20: place cut paper on top of drawing

Step 21: realize the cut paper area over the body is too blank, oh no, what do I do???
Step 22: grow a pair, decide to draw plant-like texture on cut paper layer
Step 23: put it all together on top of another blank piece of paper!
Step 24: finishing touches
Step 25: photograph piece, including detail shots
Step 26: edit photos, save in a variety of sizes for a variety of purposes
Step 27: write blog about it
Step 28: create an elaborate list of steps of how I created this piece
Step 29: write step 29 without knowing what to write
Step 30: all done!

So this piece is more 3-dimensional, and is drawing on top of paper cut on top of drawing on top of blank paper.  And here's the final piece:

"Embrace II" graphite, hand-cut paper, 22"x28", by Heather Clements, 2013.

"Embrace II" (detail) graphite, hand-cut paper, 22"x28", by Heather Clements, 2013.

"Embrace II" (detail) graphite, hand-cut paper, 22"x28", by Heather Clements, 2013.

 Green Tip:  CARE.  I don't know what the beginning of the trend of "too cool to care" was, but I think it's finally on its way out.  Apathy's reign on our culture is dying out.  Apathy exacerbates so many problems in so many ways.  People sit idly by while their Earth is being destroyed, their fellow humans are being mistreated or killed, and even while they themselves are being used and abused in the name of "progress."  But now I think, partially because we are reaching a boiling point, and partially thanks to the internet, people are starting to care again.  Nothing will ever change for the better if you don't care.  Nothing.  Caring is a double-edged sword, because it brings moments of joy and pain.  But I will take joy and pain and change for the better over apathy any day.



Thank you so much for coming to my little blog world for a few moments.  I care!

-Heather

"Embrace"

I'm totally digging this combination of drawing and paper cutting.  The two mediums together create a whole new area for exploration.  I can't wait to play around more with the marriage of these approaches.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I just finished a new piece!

I started out with a super-quick little rough sketch, just to get the vision from my head onto a piece of paper, so that it couldn't float away never to be imagined again.  Then I decided I definitely needed a model, and my good friend Carrie makes a great model.  She even did her hair just like I asked her to. :o)

Then, I drew.

Then, I cut paper.

Then, I combined the two.

That's the shortened version, of course.  To get a better idea of how it all happened, check out this little video of progress stills.




And here's the images of the final piece:

"Embrace" graphite, hand-cut paper, 22"x28", by Heather Clements, 2013.

"Embrace" (detail) graphite, hand-cut paper, 22"x28", by Heather Clements, 2013.

"Embrace" (detail) graphite, hand-cut paper, 22"x28", by Heather Clements, 2013.

"Embrace" (detail) graphite, hand-cut paper, 22"x28", by Heather Clements, 2013.

Stay tuned for more art combining drawing and cut paper!

Inspiration Source #19:  Ring-o-graphy by Alexandra Savina.  For about a month I have been playing around with a new hobby:  hoop dancing.  You probably have no idea what that is, and unlucky for you, I'm not even going to post a video of that.  ((But dude, just google it if you're curious.))  Today I wanted to share a video of a dancer with some hoops.  Again, what she is doing is in a whole different realm from hoop dancing.  But it is just so phenomenal and beautiful I had to share.  You'd never believe rolling hula hoops on the floor could be so unique and enthralling.  My words pale so much in comparison, so just watch the video, you won't regret it!

Thank you for visiting!  If you liked what you saw, share it!

-Heather

Veil - A Paper Cut AND a Drawing!

That's right, folks.  I decided to combine good 'ol fashioned drawing with cutting paper.  Of course, drawing has always been involved with the process of paper cutting, but the final product's image only consisted of cut paper.  I decided I wanted to experiment with including pencil drawing.  I think the combination of mediums further explores the dichotomy or union between humans and nature.

This has definitely been one of those things where you finally figure out how best to do it when you're about finished.  But that means the next one will be that much easier!

Okay, okay, I know, you didn't come here to read that much, you just came for the pretty art... So here you go!

"Veil" hand-cut paper, drawing, 11"x14", by Heather Clements, 2013

"Veil" (detail) hand-cut paper, drawing, 11"x14", by Heather Clements, 2013

"Veil" (detail) hand-cut paper, drawing, 11"x14", by Heather Clements, 2013

As you can see, the paper cut is floating about 1/4" above the drawing for some lovely shadow action.

Aaaaand I made a process video!  I finally got myself a tripod with some birthday money, so I was able to play around with that for a new video.  I only included some of the process to keep from boring you. The clips shown are fast forwarded 20 times faster than real time!

Green Tip #18:  Choose your sunscreen carefully.  Sunscreen is definitely important for protecting your skin (although sun-proof clothes are even better!) but there can be serious damage to the environment, and your health, depending on which sunscreen you choose.  Read more about it at EarthShare.



Thank you for stopping by!  Now maybe show me some love by commenting, 'following' me (by clicking that 'join this site' button on the left,) or by liking my Facebook page!  Every like, comment, and follow is super appreciated!


-Heather

Sparks-Bautista Family Tree

When the opportunity to do a commissioned family tree came about, I instantly suggested a paper cut family tree.  I'm so glad I did.  I have been really excited about creating this piece for quite a while.  Not only was I looking forward to the challenge of turning this new subject into a paper cut, but I felt honored to be chosen to create something so meaningful for a family.  After many sketches and ideas, then a lot more sketching and a lot more cutting, the final piece is complete!  I'm super happy with how it turned out, and I can't wait for the family (in Arizona) to see it in person.

Enough of this cheap talk, let's get to the juicy images:

"Sparks-Bautista Family Tree" hand-cut paper, 20"x24", by Heather Clements, 2013

"Sparks-Bautista Family Tree" (detail)  hand-cut paper, 20"x24", by Heather Clements, 2013

"Sparks-Bautista Family Tree" (detail)  hand-cut paper, 20"x24", by Heather Clements, 2013

"Sparks-Bautista Family Tree" (detail)  hand-cut paper, 20"x24", by Heather Clements, 2013

"Sparks-Bautista Family Tree" (detail)  hand-cut paper, 20"x24", by Heather Clements, 2013

"Sparks-Bautista Family Tree" (detail)  hand-cut paper, 20"x24", by Heather Clements, 2013

Some images of the progress....

Paper cut family tree progress, by Heather Clements

Paper cut family tree progress, by Heather Clements

The finished piece from the back:

Paper cut family tree progress, by Heather Clements

It would be really awesome to do more commissioned family tree paper cuts, so please contact me if you would be interested in one!



Inspiration Source #18:  Land Art by Cornelia Konrads.  I've always been drawn to land art, especially the amazing Andy Goldsworthy.  It's no surprise that I would feel a connection with art created with and among nature.  The gravity-defying works of Cornelia Konrads is definitely worth a peek.  Check some out here.

As always, I thank you for your time to give my blog a little visit.

-Heather