Method

David John asked me to share my method of production of the paper cutouts I posted. I did not want to swamp the blog with postings being young in membership, so I sent him an email which bounced back. (You might want to check if the eddress you posted is in error, david. deology.com@hotmail.com) So I am posting it here anyway.

I get a photo of a rose window from the outside and place it in an old Adobe Illustrator on my old Mac. Then I trace it. I have to decide how its form is to be translated into what will subsequently be layers. I need only do one segment which I can then rotate 22.5 degrees or 45 degrees or whatever and copy, then again, then again, etc. I make separate files of each layer in simple black outline. I laser print them. I then paste them onto 300 pound cold press water colour paper with water soluble glue. Then I cut them out with a number 11 blade and/or a small snap-off blade utility knife. When a piece is cut out I soak it in water. The cheap bond paper deteriorates and rubs off as does the glue. It dries. I glue it together. I do this, by the way, while listening to audio books, finally making peace between the two great antagonists, Art and Reading, in their long struggle for my time.

The first time I did this, got the idea, was in illuminating a ketubah, a Jewish wedding contract (for which there is a modern illumination tradition of which I had been previously unaware.) for my beloved niece. I'd a sheet of 200 pound water colour paper for years that I had bought I think only because it was made in the same place and in the same way it had been made 300 years before Michelangelo bought paper there. (Isn't that wicked cool?) So I kind of worked up this method for that. It's hard to explain, but sensually, it is the paper, very much the paper where I feel the gift of God. Cellulose! What a good idea!

There's other stuff of mine at http://tommyfrancisco.spaces.live.com/