Upon your request here’s a traditional media alternative to the shape exercise from last time. And even if you are perfectly fine with digital, you might still want to give papercut a chance. It is a unique experience for itself.
01 – Glue a blank white piece of paper on a bigger black piece of paper. You can also use colored paper, just make sure your papers of choice have a nice contrast with each other.
Tip: You might want to change the orientation or size of picture plane later depending on where chance leads you. So make sure you have enough paper of your background color ready to add it later if you need to.
02 – Take another sheet of paper of your background color and cut it apart into wild shapes. Keep in mind that you might have better results when you have small, medium and big shapes to work with for later.
03 – Arrange your shapes in a way that you like and that make a compelling composition for you.
Tip: When you have found your composition, make a photo to remember what it looks like, then start glueing the shapes to the paper. It’s almost inevitable that in the process some of them will change their placement, no reason to panic. You can use light pencil lines to indicate what goes where. But overall, chance can be your friend, even now.
04 – My piece started as a landscape with lake, but I can’t unsee the tapir in portrait view, so I’m going to flesh it out with some additional details.
05 – First I glued my original piece of paper on a bigger cardboard, then I added ears, paw and trunk. And here it is!
And what are you going to make? Feel free to share it with me! Tag me under your piece on Instagram, Twitter and Mastodon.art. My handle is Styxcolor.
