Sculpture and Paper Cuts

I love it! Now do it over again.

Sunflowers 1 by Patrick Gracewood ©2012

 This is how a craftsman's life is different from an artist's life.
I'm both so I should know.

Time = Money. The longer the laser is cutting metal, the more expensive this project is going to be.
So take the sunflower idea and simplify it. Begin again, using what I learned on the first round to make this second iteration better. (By the way, the tediousness doesn't go away.)

Sunflowers 2 by Patrick Gracewood ©201

Great, this part works.

Now how do I fill the big black space above? My idea was a sun over an entire planet of sunflowers.
I liked the sun I edited OUT of the St Francis panel. It reminds me of Durer prints. But after cutting it I didn't like it. Too much a different texture, so I tried to tie it together with a stalk to connect the two.

The leaves and stalk are too great a contrast and steal attention from the Sunflowers. Damn.

Here's where it gets ugly rather than perfect. Perfectionism would tell me I've ruined it. Yup, that voice is often heard screaming in my studio. Luckily, I live with parrots, so perfectionism is just one more voice in the chaos choir. Solution? Cut and paste. It's that simple.

Sunflower world  paper cut by Patrick Gracewood ©2012

Paper cutting is about the power of patterning.

That's more like it. The leaves and stalk are more in the background. I missed an opportunity to reinforce the curve of the world by not having the stalk pattern going the same direction. I would also have liked that patten to be a bit more regular, but the irregularity that comes from hand work is what keeps it from being too perfect. Perfection is not interesting visually because our eyes look for differences as much as they look for symmetry.