Chapter 4 - Cut & Fold Design Shapes

Folding paper and cutting shapes is a lovely relaxing activity, I remember my mum amused me for hours folding and cutting when I was little. Both she and I carried this on with my daughters, so I find it quite odd that I had never thought of using it as a design tool before.

Cut & Fold Design Shapes In Black Paper

I started off with symmetrical shapes:

4.1                                                        4.2

And continued with asymmetrical shapes, and some completely random folding & snipping! I didn't make diagrams for the random snips because well, they are just random. I can always use tracing paper if I want an exact copy:

   4.3                                                       4.4

I also added a couple of nice cut outs that were leftovers from too much snipping. Which I suppose counts as an early experiment of disintegration for Chapter 11. I could have made many, many more examples, but I feel fairly happy with the samples and I'm confident I can make more as I need them. I did like the 3 from 1 shapes (4.3) and think I will definitely use this method in the future. 

These are all in my sketchbook (A4).

Cut & Fold Design Shapes In Coloured Papers

I enjoyed this section and I think because I was using my own papers it made it much more pleasing. Some of the paper I had coloured was quite heavy to fold and cut, so in future I need to make sure I colour some background/mounting paper and some thinner, more pliable paper. The textured paper and tissue worked well and I like the effect of the silver colour on various papers.  I decided to make these as design sheets which I can have pinned up, handy for the next section and so they are mounted A3 size.

Design Sheet D

 

 

I used some of my black cut outs as a basis/template for cutting some symmetrical patterns which helped me to compare how greatly a shape is altered by using colours and layers. Again because I'm fairly confident folding and cutting I concentrated more on the colour aspect of developing a design. So I cut the pylon star shape and compared light and dark negative shapes, around the 3 from 1 cutting I had completed earlier (D5 & D6). I also liked the units with the brighter blue added - unfortunately the photographs do not show the true colours very well.

 

Design Sheet E

 

 

 

With Design Sheet E I liked exploring how to add movement to units. I think with E2 where I had four layers I could have left the blue off of the top. I found mixing asymmetrical and symmetrical layers very interesting and I particularly like the effect of the negative shape with 'striped' middle layer (E3 & E4).  My favourite is E5 where I randomly folded and cut and layered, and I liked the colours and textures.

 

I then had a look at cropping designs with a frame.  I decided to cut a couple of frames and leave them paper clipped to the sheets so I have then to be reused as often as I want.

 

 

 

 

I have really enjoyed this chapter. I am continuing to learn very quickly about shape, colour and designing. I'm brimming with ideas for future projects. I'm pretty sure I'll soon have a stack of sketchbooks. I am looking forward to getting my hands on some fabric now.