A Study in Paper #7: Холмс и Ватсон

[ldhenson]

So aeroferret continued to feed my crafting addiction by giving me a shiny new craft knife ♥ Well, of course I had to put it to good use.

A paper-cutting for the Russian Sherlock Holmes series.


Thumbnail:






Despite being a fairly straightforward design, this one took an entire week to finish (by contrast, I did #6 in a single evening). The tricky bit wasn't the actual cutting process--which, granted, still took a long time--but rather the planning, pulling all the elements together while still keeping the central portrait of Holmes and Watson clean and simple. Sometimes things just take a while to coalesce.





But I'm very happy with the final result.

Plus it's a nice complement to my Russian!SH pendant :-)





And one more pic, in different lighting:





Cut from cardstock. A little over 6.5" x 10.25", before folding.


X-posted to cox_and_co (here), craftgrrl (here), geekcrafts (here), my dA, 221b_bakerst (here)

Comments

[grey-summer.livejournal.com]

Love it. It's absolutely gorgeous.
Sherlock looks somehow surprised here)

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much!

Hee, Holmes is in the middle of explaining something here, and Watson is dutifully listening. As always <3

[tweedisgood.livejournal.com]

Love the lettering as a frame and Solomin is instantly recognisable!

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Profile portraits are surprisingly tricky to cut (I made a point of never doing profiles in my fannish snowflakes (http://ldhenson.livejournal.com/tag/snowflakes)) but I couldn't resist, so I'm happy they're recognizable here!

[galwithglasses.livejournal.com]

I love that last one with the shadow. I love that your art makes more art.

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that's an awesome way of describing it <3

[reasonabsurd.livejournal.com]

Are those the banisters from their staircase?
And you got Solomin's little Russian nose!
I like the shadow photo. You should try taking more photos like that. Maybe even experiment with the angle of the light.

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

You're very close about what (semi-loosely) inspired the frame design...it's not the stairs but it issomething in the flat :-)

I always look forward to seeing how the shadows will turn out once I've finished a piece. I did do some more photos with them, but to be honest I thought people might find them boring!

[morelindo.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, that is so gorgeous. You're so talented and these are just something completely different, I am in awe every time you post a new one.
Thank you for sharing these with us.

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! I love trying out new ideas with paper and I'm glad people are enjoying these.

[sazzat.livejournal.com]

That's really beautiful. The Russian series is my favourite too, so I love this :D

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much!

Love Watson's expression in your icon.

[suddenlyflying.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's very lovely! I like how the silhouettes are very obviously them.

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I love hearing that they're so recognizable.

[specialcamper.livejournal.com]

Yay! This is fantastic! I think Vitaly Solomin is my favorite Watson.

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Aw thank you! I have a tough time choosing between Solomin and Law as my favorite Watson, though they're pretty different characters so maybe I shouldn't compare. Everyone wins!

[schonste.livejournal.com]

je l'adore!! ahh...so pretty. it's funny b/c I first saw it and thought it was just a canon cutout, AND I RECOGNIZED RUSSIAN WATSON'S LITTLE LIPPY POUT.
this is awesome. ♥

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Hee...I can't tell you how happy that makes me <3 The hardest part always is making sure I get their likenesses right, so thank you!

[ironicbees.livejournal.com]

Love it, especially the Cyrillic names on the sides. ♥ How do you get all these great ideas?

Neat pendant, too!

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! I love typography and I used text for the first time in the cutting right before this one (SPN fandom (http://ldhenson.livejournal.com/267864.html)). But in the future I'll probably gladly leave cutting text to artists more patient that me :-)

[heehee11.livejournal.com]

Wow! You're brilliant! (and I'll repeat it when you'll post more!) Again, the pictures you take of your work are really nice too. And #6 was soooo romantic! This one too, btw ^^

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you! I love experimenting with photos and lighting so I'm glad you like them.

I still can't get a good photo of my little paper Xmas cottage with a light inside, since my camera doesn't work well in low light. It's fun trying, though.

[ryals-shoal.livejournal.com]

Fantastic work and great pictures! This is such a fantastic piece of art, and a wonderful piece of Sherlock Holmes art! ♥

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the kind words!

[sarahk-2009.livejournal.com]

I always love your work! But that shadow picture is absolutely manufique! (or however you spell that word! c(:<) lol

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Well thank you! I love doing photography with shadows; it's like a nice bonus after I've finished up all the cutting :-)

[fullofowls.livejournal.com]

This is beautiful! I wish I had such skill.

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thanks muchly!

Your icon's so cute...are those flying foxes?

[railise]

This is amazing-- I'm always awed to see your papercuts on geekcrafts. You have a real gift!!

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much!

(I don't even x-post all of them to geekcrafts because I don't want to spam, but I'm glad you're enjoying them.)

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

lovely!

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[rustlemybustle.livejournal.com]

This is beautiful, what a unique way of making fanart. I'm in love!

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Aw thank you! I've just been experimenting with paper as I go, and fandom never stops providing inspiration :-)

[nathcoelho.livejournal.com]

thats really awesome! love it! =D

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much!

[storyfan.livejournal.com]

This is stunning, especially "the art makes more art" bit of it. It reminds me of the glass work of Preston Singletary, who creates his Northwest American Indian pieces so that they reflect on surfaces.

A sample: http://www.craftinamerica.org/artists_glass/pic_14.jpg

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much! I'm not familiar with Singletary's art but that piece is beautiful and I'll have to look up more of his work. Yes, I love the idea of there being an "extra" aspect to a piece of art. It's like a little discovery or bonus. (It's also why I love making things like my playable shadow boxes, which are meant to look nice by themselves, but are also interactive.)

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

That is amazing. I love the Cyrillic lettering.

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thank you! The text was a late addition since it took me ages to find a font with the right widths and so on...quite an adventure when it's in a language you don't speak :-) But I found one at last.

[days-of-storm.livejournal.com]

I adore the Russian Holmes and Watson! My EngLit professor has it on video tape and we watched it in several seminars :) and this is really spectacularly great :)

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much!

Clearly you have an awesome professor with good taste :-)

[alek-morse.livejournal.com]

I have already come here, on this post, and examined this remarkable artifact with a great pleasure. Finally I have time to say the admiration of your work and tell some thoughts.

But at first a concrete question: do the big pictures show 100% the size of things?

First, I must to say that you have surprisingly cached the essence of the Livanov/Solomin series – a paper and scissors expressed the main idea of this film, I think, and, in most «iconic» form: both Holmes and Watson talk at a fireplace. The filmmakers especially emphasized the fireplace scene, expressing it in the most symbolical form. But your work, in any sense, in some has outdone this symbolic element, after all it is shot in realistic way, and your artifact is an emblem in which a decorative-constructive elements of fireplace portrait a “window” yet, where both Holmes and Watson images are inserted into. It turns out that both Holmes and Watson are not just near the fireplace, and as though against a window of their apartment-fortress. (It was "secondly".)

In short, awesome!

And thirdly: in my opinion, the artistic idea, the material and technology (selected by you) are extremely organic to the art form of the Livanov/Solomin series, each episode that begins with application, installation – a play of letters and words.

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the kind words!

The cutting is larger than shown in the photos. Before I folded it, it was slightly larger than 6.5 x 10.25 inches, or about 166mm x 261mm. I mainly cut this with a knife, although I did use scissors for the small round knobs at the top of the frame.

Your description is great, and you're right, and the symbolism is definitely there. I'm fond of those fireplace scenes, and it's very central to their friendship, quite literally hearth and home. Plus, I based their portraits from a scene in «Смертельная схватка» when they're traveling, so there's also the idea that even when they're far from home, the thought of home is not that far away...if you wanted to read into it that much, that is :-) As the artist it made me happy to hear your thoughts on this.

[milij-rizhik.livejournal.com]

Love them, love it. Thank you!)

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much!

[arkennes.livejournal.com]

Oh wow that's brilliant! I love the Russian writing, the banisters at the top and clean design! I would actually buy this if I saw it :)

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Aw, thank you! I'm especially glad you like the banisters since I rarely have the patience to cut repeated patterns like that. But I wanted them and I'm happy with how they came out :-)

[kornet-azarov.livejournal.com]

It's fantastic! You're miracle-worker - creating such miracles just with scissors. Special gratitude for Russian letters and "shadows" photo:o)

[ldhenson.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! I don't speak Russian myself so I had to check and check again that the letters were right. Sometimes different fonts were confusing, but it was fun to learn.