Fire Week and Paper Cutting

FIRE WEEK : Day 17

Banishing the "shoulds" in my life---this was an interesting exercise: take the phrase I should.......
and change it to: I could...but I choose not to at this time.

This made me see in a new way that I was really choosing to not act on some of the "shoulds" in my life at this time...and that inaction is ok for now. For instance--- "I should pack my stuff to move" changed into : "I could pack my stuff to move, but I choose not to at this time." You might try this with the "shoulds" in your life--I found that doing this can be a real eye opener!

Artistically, this week I was inspired by this out-of-print book---which I picked up at a thrift store---

and I created my very first paper cut design--which I titled--"You were born with wings--why not fly?" I chose to use an exacto knife to cut the design out which worked well. The trick is to use a very sharp new blade --and change it often. For the colors, I used gouache piants and painted them on after cutting.


If you like the look of papercutting---there are some interesting blogs on the subject. I love the blog THE HEART OF PAPERCUTS by Elsa Mora---she is the most amazing papercut artist--and has many links to other papercut artists on her blog, also--plus links to tutorials, and supplies.

TODAYS' QUOTE: "You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?" --Rumi