New bronze foil illustrations and postcards for 2024, oh and some handprinted bags

bronze foil print papercut flower Sabeth Elberse

At the end of 2023 I felt really excited to make something new. I try more and more to show the papercuts whitch are the base for the designs and the manual feeling, despite the digital editing. And that works best if I keep the shape simple, the lines imperfect and the colors limited.

What I have never tried is foil printing, and I thought that would be a nice idea for the holidays. I have chosen a beautiful bronze-colored foil on thick A4 textured paper. It’s a small poster to brighten up your and mine wall. I think the result is great. It shines off the paper and it looks like sunshine on the wall. With all the rain and storms we're having at the moment, I find it's nice to look at something that makes you smile.

MY PROCES

I started by cutting simple birds and by placing them over each other you got a nice overlap. For the flower I was inspired by mid-century Scandinavian pottery such as Mari Simmulson and Figgio Norway pottery. (what a holiday in Norway can do for you) I did not cut the flower from one piece of paper but from different parts. That also gave me the room to play with the different cut outs, so I could ‘build’ the flower from there. By using only black paper I was able to focus on the shape of the designs.

My 2nd new product is a series of papercut cards. I love flowers and birds and the more abstract the better. I don't think it has to resemble an existing flower or bird. I'd prefer it when it’s not, that gives me a lot of freedom. I'm currently a fan of the pink with cobalt blue and pink with dark green. Yellow ocher has been a favorite for a while now. The result is 6 cards, 3 flowers and 3 birds. I thought it would be a nice new set for my etsy shop. These simple cut outs are cut from 1 piece of paper, again in black or white paper and then digitally colored.

BAGS

To add a few extra’s to my etsyshop, I had some lovely bags, which you can use as a kind of extra present or to wrap your present in. I made them more me by adding a screen print of a papercut bird in neon. (I just love neon!) I uses normal printing paper, which works best, cut out the bird and taped it to a small screenprint frame. And on a Saturday afternoon my house turned into a printing station. With one papercut I could print the 20 bags. After drying them with my hairdryer I took photo's for my etsyshop and that was that. I really liked the experiment, but did realize why I like papercuts so much. I do not really like to get my hands and clothes dirty. ;-)