50 Years & Counting!

So what's new and exciting with you?  Hopefully you're answering with lots of enthusiasm as you detail happy little tidbits from this past weekend.  As for me, I had the privilege of attending a very special surprise anniversary celebration for my great-aunt & great-uncle who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday.  Below you will see pictures of the piece I made for them marking this special milestone in their lives.  As I made this piece, I took progress photos to post on my Facebook page as a "how to" for those who are curious about the process.  Allow me to share those photos with you along with a picture of the finished product!



 The design for this piece is from a pattern I bought.  As you can see, I have the pattern drawn out on parchment paper that is folded in half to create a piece with symmetry.  The imagery seen here is commonly found in traditional German pieces - birds, flowers and hearts.

For this particular piece, I used both scissors and a blade for cutting in some details, which you will see on the last picture in this post.

When cutting, it is best to start in the center of the piece and work your way out.  And most importantly, take your time!  Each cut MUST be precise.  Erroneous cuts for the most part mean trashed piece.  That does happen sometimes.

 Here is the piece with all the major cutting finished.  Unfolded, you can see the symmetry.  You'll see in the final pictures below that I did some detailing cuts to add definition to the birds and flowers. 

Here is the finished piece, pressed and mounted but prior to framing.  The parchment is mounted on black paper, which you can see through the cuts.  After pressing out the center crease, I added a little calligraphy flourish to personalize and voila!   




close-up showing detail cuts

 As mentioned above, there are times when a piece goes awry.  The original of this piece did just that, but not because of faulty cutting.  The "how to" pictures shown above are from about a month ago, which is when the 1st piece was originally cut.  Then earlier last week I did the calligraphy and put it aside to frame Thursday night.  Prior to framing, I cleaned the glass with Windex and must not have wiped it completely dry on the inside.  When putting the piece in, my calligraphy smudged.  Ack!!  Needless to say, I was not pleased and after yelling out a few choice words, knew what must be done.  So Friday night I cut a whole new piece and early Saturday morning I did the calligraphy so that it would have plenty of time to dry before being framed and wrapped for the party.  I must say, the Universe indeed works in mysterious ways because even though I was quite upset Thursday night with what happened, I definitely liked the look of the redo much better than the original and was glad that that was the piece to be gifted! 

In closing, I guess I should try to explain why I chose Doppelganger for the name of my blog.  I realize that the term has quite the sinister meaning.  But I just love the look and sound of the word!  From Day #1, it was at the top of my list when determining a name for my blog, with no logical reason as to why except to say it's catchy!  When looking up all the variations of definition, most frequently mentioned is "a ghostly double."  That describes what this blog is for me in terms of being the counterpart to the art of Preservation Art.  It's the modern written form running concurrent to my classical art expression.  Not that all the art I'm creating could be described as classical, but the creation of even the most modern imagery piece I make is based on a classic process of cutting from paper with tiny scissors (and sometimes blades).  Whereas this blog is being typed and displayed by a web-based medium -- a most modern expression.  Quite the "ghostly double" of the art it details, wouldn't you say?  So now, does my choice of blog name make sense?  In my muddled mind it does.  Bottom line is, I wanted a title that was catchy, provoking and intriguing.  I wanted something to pull people in..to trick them into entering my layer...ensnare them in my web!  Mwah~ha~ha~ha!!  And I guess it worked!  You're here, aren't you?!