I’m working on a papercutting for somebody at the moment and wanted something special to back it with.
I went to a shop that specialises in raw silk from China, Thailand and India. It’s called Roisin Cross. It has the most beautiful range of silks.
I chose three Dupion silks – these are woven in India and have a wonderful texture with little imperfections in the weave that makes them so pretty. They’re not so flowy or soft as the lighter weight silks as I needed the stiffer backing. They have a certain irridescence about them as well.
The choice of colour had to be something that would contrast with white paper – Canson brilliant white, 250gsm, acid-free cartridge paper. In the end I chose a sharp green, a dark sea blue-green and a dark mulberry.
The pic above is the first cut, on Canson natural white on the dark sea green.
On the sharp green:
On the mulberry:
The Dupion silks:
It’s been difficult to find good quality backing paper for papercuts for the past year and silk makes a superb alternative.
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