A new Scherenschnitte for my garden friends.

  I am ending the growing season with a tribute to Gardeners far and wide. ( And, because it REALLY was time to finish this Scherenschnitte.)

 Size: 16x20 
Paper:Antique parchment

Tools: number 11 xacto knife,( if you try this art-form, you must always have a sharp, sharp tip on your blade, so keep EXTRA blades on hand.) I buy blades by the 100 pack.
Pencils, brushes and watercolor paints. 

Firstly, I  free-handed my original design onto the paper. Here is the tricky part, a design must be drawn in such a way as to NOT FALL APART when cut  out. In other-words,  I am designing a connected silhouette
 Here is an overview of my entire piece, which I have begun to paint

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Upper left hand side with  twining Morning Glories.

 If you  wish to try paper-cutting (scherenschnitte) , it just takes practice, so start with simple designs. If you cannot draw, you can purchase a book, such as "Papercutting" by Claudia Hopf" OR "Paper Cuts" by Taylor Hagerty.

 Start with those, but eventually, I hope you will design your own patterns. Copying the work of someone else is not very rewarding, although it can be a good way to learn. Just be sure the work you copy is MEANT to be a pattern.

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 Upper right hand, a crock full of bulbs.

More layers of color. This is what I love about watercolor. You can achieve as much detail as with any other paint, for a much lower cost. A tube of good watercolor paint will last you for years because a little goes a long way. Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre, Raw umber, Alizarin Crimson and Paynes Grey are colors I cannot do without. Windsor Newton and Sennelier are my favorite brands.

  

Here, in the upper left hand corner, is Esther standing on the watering can!

( I wonder how dear little Esther is getting on......)

And below is the top  third of the picture completely painted

Now I am skipping to the bottom of the page.  I love gardeners, gardens, bees and roses and jonquils, violets, spades and bulbs and black earth and especially GOOD compost!

My goat gals, she sheep and donkey dames provide me with plenty of that!

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There are many intricate cuts in this piece, but as is always the case in my work, I will spend more time painting than cutting.

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Baskets of bounty, beep-skeps, Nasturtiums and Bluebells.  Oh dear! I just discovered that I misspelled Nasturtiums on the little paper seed packets! Oh well, artistic license.

   Lower right hand

Now it is time to decide what on earth I am going to put in that center oval. 

 I changed my mind many times on the center piece, I spent 3 days writing some garden verse, 3 more days practicing Copperplate penmanship and 3 days looking for the proper pens. THEN I didn't use ANY of the above.  Because, My poem was 7 paragraphs long, my Copperplate did not look good, and I suddenly had a better plan.  I took  inspiration from the etchings in an old farmers almanac, dated 1833, ( I collect these).   I "antiqued" the paper with a sponge full of watered-down Burnt umber paint. I designed a little "etching" using sepia inks.

This was a lot of fun, I used tiny pen quills and ink pots

 

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I used Old English Penmanship, it seemed to be more appropriate to the subject matter, and I really didn't master that Copperplate writing,(someday I will!)  There is only one paragraph of verse. That is all it needed, it think

  "Dedicated to  all who toil in the soil"

I am having offset lithographs printed of this piece. When they are available I will  be giving the first one off the press to a reader. So keep  your eyes on the Gazette, as soon as my prints arrive, we will have a drawing. And, as anyone who has been reading this blog knows, we have a lot of fun drawing names here in Hopalong Hollow!

At last , I have tied up the  loose ends of unfinished artwork.

Now I can dedicate  my full time to finishing up my BOOK!!!

While our Morning Glory blooms, fades and drops it's little black seeds all round,

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and little Bushky Bushybottoms  collect Black Walnuts for their pantry,

 I await the cool days of Autumn, I find it the most lovely season.