The First Cut - Inspiration

Last October I posted about a school visit I had organised to  Manchester Gallery's jaw droppingly good exhibition - The First Cut.

Recently we invited Bristol based paper cut artist Mark Curtis Hughes to come in and work with the students who saw the Manchester exhibition.

Mark treats his papercuts as working drawings, cutting directly into the paper to work out an image with no pre-drawing:

Discipline by Mark Curtis Hughes

The students were very inspired by the brave approach and it seemed to break down some drawing barriers for them.

Death by Mark Curtis Hughes
 

The use of block colour also gave the students new ideas and helped to direct their thinking and image making. The above image is a relief print developed from a papercut.

Here are some of the resulting students images displayed at our school exhibition:

 

 

 

As you can see the students have discovered a new medium that can enhance their work and it hasn't stopped yet, they are still finding new ways of applying these skills. Its been great to discover a new way to draw, and a new and totally unexpected way of giving students confidence.

Please look at Mark's blog to see more of his work: markcurtishughes.blogspot.co.uk
and to find details of his forthcoming exhibition