How My Fascination with Everything Cutouts Began

My white cutout leather bag

It was only very recent that I realized when my fascination with cutting and paper began. I was always interested in everything cutouts, may it be jewelry, fabric, furniture and paper, especially.

I always wonder how it began... And then one day I remember, when I was about 7 or 8 years old, my father made me my first ever paperdoll (!), complete with a stand and 2 sets of clothes. (Yes, I got my creativity from my father and my love of creating or working with my hands, from my dear mother! It was hand-sketched and hand-cut. He used colored markers in rendering. I can still remember how it looked like - the girl he drew is simple and yet very charming. I remember it having blunt bangs and wore a plain tank top and shorts as it's 'default clothes'. He explained what the flaps in the paper clothes are for and taught me how to attach it to my paperdoll. And since he only made 2 sets of clothes, he encouraged me to make more. And so I grabbed my pencil, colored markers, scissors and papers and started creating more, to my heart's content! I always enjoyed drawing when I was a kid and that incident with my father introduced me to another potential interest - c u t t i n g !  Yey! Since then, I look forward to doing school projects and other activities with cutting involved.

When I was in college, my grandmother's brother (also an artist, yes, it runs in the family) gave me my first ever craft knife set, complete with a cute case and spare blades, but I don't know how and where to use it back then.

Fast forward to 2011, I googled a papercut art piece and I instantly fell in love with it. I immediately tried my hand at paper cutting. My early creations were nature-inspired - always flowers and foliage. I like making organic and biomorphic designs. I enjoyed every bit of the cutting process - from tracing my hand-sketches using a craft knife, to carefully taking out the negative spaces and slowly revealing the cut paper. The contrasting play of light and shadow brought by the positive and negative spaces is visually i n t e r e s t i n g.

So whenever I have free time, I make papercuts for myself. For my own delight. It's fun and liberating to make art for yourself - you are your own boss, you own critique.

3D leaves papercut

 'Bloom'
I made this in 2011 and in 2014, I gifted it to Mrs. Emma Palo, my grade school teacher.

Whenever I'm paper cutting, weird as it may sound, I feel that the blade of my craft knife is an extension of my fingers. Cutting and slicing through paper is like endorphins shots for me. I feel like I'm in my element every time I do this craft. It makes me feel so alive and I'm beyond happy that I've found my flow. :)

'Find Your Flow' available at Craftlab Shop, our online craft store: http://www.craftlabshop.com/product/framed-papercut-find-your-flow

Name Game

Hello! Welcome to Happy to Leekha! :)

Just a short story on why I chose 'Happy to Leekha' as the name of my blog. Likha is a Filipino word for make or create, and I just incorporated  Lee, my nickname, to it to somehow 'make it my own' and added the word happy, which best describe how I feel everytime I make or create something beautiful. So, Happy to Leekha means (I am) happy to make/create.

Happy to Leekha is an arts & crafts blog that aims to bring joy and inspiration to people through my handmade papercuts and other paper crafts. I believe that using and sharing my God-given gifts which are creativity and good craftmanship (or patience) to serve and inspire others is what I was born to do. I also believe that beautiful, well-thought out and well-crafted things can enrich people's lives through the warmth, inspiration and joy it brings. And if enriching people's lives will help contribute to make a better and happy world, then the more I want to continue doing what I do best. Cheers! :)

Why I Love Paper

    

WHY I LOVE PAPER

I like working with paper ever since I was a kid. I remember making paper dolls, along with fashionable clothes, accessories and paper doll houses. I also made paper fans, bookmarks, greeting cards, envelopes and decorative letters for my friends and family that I had artfully rolled, stitched together, folded into hearts, stars, clothes, etc. Most of the time, I made paper toys and accessories for myself and gifted some to friend. I also remember selling some bookmarks out of paper and popsicle sticks to my cousins. I sold them for Php 2.00 each and my cousins bought all of them. I think it’s safe to safe to say that I already possess entrepreneurial skills ever since I was a kid. :D

I love paper as an art medium for so many reasons. It is light. It is simple. It is easy to manipulate. It has a lot of potential depending on the artist's imagination, creativity, skill, craftsmanship, passion and patience.

From a simple sheet or roll of paper to an amazing piece of artwork that gives joy to both the maker/artist and consumer. It is truly amazing how an unassuming piece of paper, turned into something delicate and precious can excite and awaken the creative, imaginative and happy kid in all of us. 

Cut it, fold it, twist it, roll it , mache it, laminate it or make a combination of all these, etc. Adjectives to describe how paper are manipulated depends on the producers' (artist) and consumers' (audience/client) perspective. For example, the craft of paper cutting may be described as 'simple and therapeutic' by a papercut artist while it is usually seen as a tedious and complicated but undeniably amazing craft by consumers/audience.

I have been a full time papercut artist for over 10 years now. I started in the first quarter of 2014, and I can say that  I am happy with the skill level I've achieved so far. I'm not saying that I've already gained a 'master-level' in this craft but I'm happy with the progress I've attained. Practicing really works. 

I love paper as an art medium for so many reasons. It's light, simple and easy to manipulate. It has a lot of potential depending on the artist's imagination, creativity,skill, craftsmanship, passion and patience. 

This is a paper flower  I made out of acid free paper.
I made this as accent for a wedding keepsake
 I made for a friend. Each petal has their monogram dry seal. 

From a simple sheet or roll, to an amazing piece of artwork that gives joy to both the producer and consumer. It's truly amazing how an unassuming piece of paper, turned into something delicate and precious can excite and awaken the creative, imaginative and happy kid in all of us. 

Here is a screen shot of my cousins' (Wico and Altina Baltazar of  http://purplelue.com/) save the date video that I used as basis for the papercut I gifted them for their wedding.

This is the papercut version of the above screen shot. Notice that my cuts are not yet that detailed and intricate.
I did this back in 2012.

Fast forward to 2014, this is a wedding papercut I did last October, of the same year, for a client in Australia.

As with all things, it is really about progress and not about perfection. I attribute these improvements to the values (as enumerated below) I learned and developed from working with paper. 

1. Gentleness - One must be gentle enough to shape a delicate medium like paper.
2. Patience -  Most techniques applied to paper are 'tedious', so one needs to stretch his/her patience to develop the skills needed to produce great work.
3. Ingenuity - When a boo boo happens, one needs to have a ton of this trait to be able to work around a mistake and still produce a work of great quality and value. And I repeat, it's really not about perfection. A boo boo adds character to the artwork and it humanizes the artist. An imperfect art is beautiful.
4. Humility & Perseverance - When a mistake is severe and the only acceptable remedy is to have the  piece redone, one must be humble & persevering enough to accept the situation  and start all        over again, this time wiser and more careful. 
5. Work with zest, presence, integrity and curiosity - enjoy the process, play, and don't lose your curiosity. Work with integrity and joy and your artwork will surely be of benefit. 

I hope my love of paper somehow inspires you to create one or better appreciate paper artworks.  Share your comments below! :)