"Lucky" - My Cut Paper Fish

I've been doing a lot of cut paper stuff lately. It's my latest technique obsession. It started with wanting to do a papel picado style skull, but while researching papel picado I started learning about other paper cutting traditions. I borrowed a pair of my husband's surgical scissors and started cutting just about every piece of paper I could find. I still haven't gotten around to cutting out the skull because I've been to busy using cut paper for some of my swaps that have deadlines, but I'll get to it eventually. The project I wanted it for is still a ways off.

I absolutely love this fish! I call him my "Lucky" as he is made after the Chinese carp. I don't plan on swapping him, which is saying quite a bit. I have kept almost nothing that I have done over the years in any medium. I just don't get that attached to most of my work, but this one I'm keeping. I may even have to frame him I like him so much!

I sent him into ATC Quarterly as a submission for their "Fish Ish" theme for the March issue and it looks like they may use it! As always, I'm not happy with the scanned image. It makes the background stand out too much and the fish look almost black, even after playing around with it in Photoshop to bring the colors back closer to what they really look like. In reality the background isn't so pronounced and looks almost watery. The fish is actually cut from green hand marbled paper. And it's difficult to tell from the scanned image, but the scales are actually holes cut through the green marbled paper, not gold shapes glued on top. I put the gold foil behind the fish to accentuate the cutouts, but in the scanned image it looks like the gold is on top of the green, not the other way around. Arrrg! I need to learn to quit critiquing the scanned images!