Powerful women

Women are powerful and I see them stifle this every. single. day. 

Stop looking to be saved and hiding your magic. 

Stop tossing aside your voice and valid emotions. 

Stop wasting your time with toxic friends or searching for numbing cures. 

Material things, better jobs and even other people-they won’t fill your gap. 

Only you can do that. 

Life is short. 

Rise up and step back into your own intuitive and innate power. 

You are compassion and creative force and divine life itself. 

You are a goddess.

Victoria Erickson

The Behold My Feminist Agenda paper cut is available

here

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs8n1cIFnnW/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

{ Sneaky Peek } A Diamond Anniversary card

I was commissioned to make a paper cut card for a very special couple celebrating their Diamond Wedding Anniversary, 60 years, something to truly be celebrated.

Where to start with a commission, the awful prospect of a blank sheet of paper!

The commissioner had seen my work before and liked the idea of having two birds, a heart and leaves, so to the scribbles. 

I start with a few thumbnail sketches to get the idea fixed on paper, to try out a few of ideas, get the major components in the right places and the overall proportion and composition "right"!

At this point I tend to walk away and let the ideas circle through my sub conscious and thought for the rest of the day.  Somehow this "sets" the idea of how I should cut the piece and I can develop the design a bit further.

And then BINGO! It all clicks into place and the design flows from the pencil onto the paper.

A bit of time and patience and here it is, all cut out.

I backed the paper cut with a lovely matt gold paper which gave the card a lovely glow and I'm told the special couple were delighted with their card.

Red Nose Day

A HUGE, MASSIVE thank you SO much to everyone who made a donation to Red Nose Day in exchange for one of my special edition Grow Old screen prints.  Together we managed to raise £195!! I've been blown away by every ones generosity and I only have one lonely print left!

I've been promising to have a giveaway for about six months but have never got round to it, completely rubbish I know! So.....since Red Nose Day is still a whole 11 days away (it takes place on Friday, 15th March) I thought that a raffle in aid of Red Nose Day with this beautiful papercut as the prize would be MUCH better! Hang it on your wall and enjoy it forever whilst getting a warm, fuzzy glow from knowing that your hard earned pennies are making a REAL difference to someones life.

All Will Be Well, a fantastic uplifting sentiment to remember when it seems as if the whole world is on your case.  The words are surrounded by delicate, lacy leaves, birdies, hearts and stars in a lovely deep green with a hint of teal.

To buy a ticket, hop over to my giving page http://my.rednoseday.com/sponsor/louisemclaren and leave a donation, there is NO minimum ticket price, just give whatever you can. 

I would love to get as many people as possible involved in raising money, so this is how YOU can help!  If you're on Facebook and share my status about the raffle I'll give you a bonus ticket (just let me know you've shared by leaving a comment as FB doesn't ALWAYS tell me!) Same goes to Twitter, just retweet any tweets about the raffle and I'll give you a bonus ticket.  Again let me know that you've done it, just in case!

Fab Friday!

I can't believe that it's the last weekend of Open Studios already, the week seems to have flown by.

As this was the first year I've taken part I really didn't know what to expect.  How many people were going to turn up and was anyone was going to buy anything?

Grow old, original paper cut......

off to a new home.

My home, original paper cut.........

off to a new home.

Birdie, original paper cut.........

off to a new home!

My greatest expectations have been far surpassed on ALL counts!  I've had a steady stream of visitors every day, all of them have been lovely (I'd love any of them to pop in and see me......anytime!) I've had quite a few commissions and I'm delighted with what I've sold! 

Open Studios has arrived!

I've had an absolutely fantastic opening weekend to Perthshire Open Studios! It's surpassed all my expectations. I've had lots of really lovely visitors, had some interesting chats, sold some work and just generally had a fab time!  The past few weeks have been really busy, filled with lots of hard work and late nights but NOW it feels really worthwhile!  

Everyone has been really interested in how I design and then actually cut out my paper cuts and it's been fun discussing my work and where I get inspiration from.

The Open Studio event runs until the 9th September and I'm open 10-5 every day and 10-7 on Saturday, so do pop in and visit me, venue 70, green route!

Tuesdays' sneaky peek!

We were away this weekend for a well earned break on our boat, which we keep in Tarbert, Loch Fyne. The weather was good. Dry and pretty sunny all weekend........but it was a bit windy! Well, too windy to think about sailing with two wobbly small people! We just "caravan-ed it", didn't go sailing, hung out, rowed round the bay in the dingy, ate ice creams and sweeties and walked!
It's recharged my batteries after the battle to get my studio emptied and decorated and I'm raring to go!

I thought I'd show you what I'm working on at the moment and how I go about making a papercut.......

Grow old with me papercut, initial design sketch.

This is the initial design sketch for "Grow old with me", complete with a few "re-thinks"!  I draw each leaf in outline only, not showing the detail that I'll cut out, and don't show the thickness of each branch.....mainly out of laziness!   

Grow old with me, 1/3 cut out, right side. 

Here it is about 1/3 cut out, with a few more scribbles and "re-thinks"! I tend to keep revising the design right up until it's cut out, changing the position of leaves and where they connect, adding more hearts or birds......


Grow old with me, 1/3 cut out, wrong side.

This is the back of the cut.  It's much easier to see how it'll look without all my scrawls! I use white paper and draw the paper cut as it'll be seen, the right way round. Then after I've cut the whole picture out I spray paint it. Some other papercutting artists use coloured paper and draw the cut on the reverse of the paper, back to front.  

New paint delivery!

This is the range of colours that I'll use to paint the paper cuts on show for Perthshire Open Studios (note the chubby 11 month old hands desperately trying to pull the cans out of the box!)

Paint-y, paint-y, sand-y, sand-y!

I've managed to get the studio emptied (mostly!) and the ceiling has had a coat of paint. Now I'm doing the boring bit.....sanding all the skirtings, door frames, the door and around the window.  It'll all get done eventually but it's sooooo dull!

On a slightly more exciting note I also managed to get these two paper cuts finished, framed up and off to their new homes.


This day I will marry my best friend Doris & John 6th August 2011

One day like this, a variation on the happily ever after cut.

Sorry for the slightly duff quality of the photos.....but it was late!

Right......back to the sanding. My consolation is that I'll soon be putting everything back in the studio.