Abstract Paper-cut Illustration

Knowing that I enjoy working with a more abstract quality to my work, I started to think about linear illustration of biomorphic shapes. I came across the work of Crystal Wagner.

Crystal Wagner

Crystal Wagner's art is mostly influenced by nature, particularly the shapes found in trees and flora. I looked into some of her black & white, bold, exiting drawings. She states that to come up with these abstract works she focuses on drawing a biomorphic influenced shape before spreading outwards and letting herself become more creative for the rest of the piece.

I decided to look closely at her illustrations and came up with my own in her style. This helped me to understand some of the marks she uses in her works so that I could create my own.

I thought that because she has created these illustrations in only two tones, they could be easily converted into paper-cuts. In order to show the amount of detail in the drawing, I would have to paper-cut it to a large scale. I used an A1 sized sheet of red card and based my paper-cut on this drawing by Wagner.

 I wasn't too strict in some places of the paper-cut and so it isn't an exact copy of the work but it had to be adapted in order for it to stay together. This work took me a long time but I think her style in this medium would have to be done to a large scale in order for it to be effective.