Saturday, January 23, 2010

Helen Musselwhite

Something wonderful via Delphine's Paradise of a blog Paradis Express (if you love gardens and the world of flora you must visit Delphine's site - she gathers a wealth of images and ideas from everywhere - including yours truly, about 10 days ago),


papercuts by Helen Musselwhite.  So delicate so elegant so painterly!  In London you can find Helen's pieces at Elphick's on Columbia Road in the East End (East London).

And can someone tell me, (Suzanne?) are all these wonderful papercuts being done these days made with plain old x-acto knives or is there some kind of fancy hi-tech cutting tool that's been invented?  If it's plain old x-acto knives, I totally bow five times over - no a hundred - to all of you!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.  The sun is back in L.A. and we've had some somewhat encouraging news this week on the Mongol Prince.  Fingers crossed.


7 comments:

  1. Thanks for the mention, I do indeed cut all my work with a scalpel (x-acto knife) and I'm pretty sure that all my contemporaries do too.
    Helen

    ReplyDelete
  2. How absolutely gorgeous! Incredibly whimsical, I adore her work.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Helen - what a nice surprise to find you here this morning! I really can't say how much I admire your work. You have the 3-D or relief element going as well as the whole separate dimension of subtle and beautiful color relationships. Matisse painted his own paper for his papercuts. How do manage to find JUST the right color paper for your compositions? Anyway, wonderful work. I will keep checking in regularly on your website and looking for you everywhere I go in England.

    Laura - glad you liked it! There's so much great work out there. I think blogs have added a whole new depth and breadth of choices for "collecting" whether in fact, or by inspiration.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh wow! Helen's work is magnificent. The intricate detail of the papercuts along with the subtly beautiful colour combinations is magical! And I love the flora / bird theme.
    As to blades - I see Helen has already responded, but I was going to say that I think the good ol' X-acto knife or scalpel is probably generally the preferred tool. I also have a very nifty little knife with a blade that swivels 360 degrees (also made by X-acto) - I find this knife makes it easier to cut continuous, fluid (organic) shapes.

    So glad to hear you have had some more encouraging news on the Mongol Prince - I am keeping my fingers and all my toes firmly crossed!

    And thanks very much for your insightful comment on the "specimens" I posted - good food for thought as I draw and try to figure out how I feel about them.

    (P.S. I come here for the optimism :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. yes amazing indeed! have a lovely week, glad the news is good. kenza

    ReplyDelete
  6. these are beautiful! i want one!

    ReplyDelete