Peter Callesen

I'm sure I've mentioned many times that I have a cat named Misty. Misty had to go to the vet today which is not her favorite thing. And the vet informed us that we need a couple tests for her. She's fine but she's crossed that magical border into elderly. Tonight she is trapped in the downstairs bathroom, and I'm having a hard time concentrating. She keeps meowing and pleading. So I need a little levity and beauty tonight.

Luckily I have just the thing. A couple months ago a friend of mine introduced me to Peter Callesen, paper artist extraordinary and I just have to share his work. I love paper art and Peter seems to take it to a level beyond anything I've ever seen before. Callesen is from Denmark although his work has been displayed all over the world. This is one of my favorite pieces of his. I love that the skeleton sitting in the chair was cut delicately from the outline on the paper. The chair is the same way. Callesen does that frequently. His art often highlighted the empty space left in the paper as much as the sculpture created from it. He uses juxtaposition well, like in the below image, titled Looking Back.

This next one is probably his most famous. He has done multiple scale castles in his work but I love the size and beauty of this particular castle. It is called Impenetrable Castle.

Callesen does not confine himself to just working with a single sheet of paper. He has done framed standout work, full sized castles and paper boats. This is one of my favorite of his framed works. I love the puppet hanging below, the drawn hand above, and the transition between drawn and cut.

And he doesn't always do small work. He once built a paper boat big enough for him to launch and paddle. He has created paper tunnels big enough to walk through. But for me it is his small, delicate, detailed work that makes me shake my head in wonder. I am so in awe of this man. Check out his work at his website, linked above.

Basic Pop-ups

I've been playing with paper lately. I mentioned a while ago how much I love pop-up books. So in January I ordered a book on how to do some basic paper engineering. It was a pop-up book that showed how to do pop-ups, which I thought was a brilliant idea. Only it wasn't in stock. Amazon kept extending the ship date further and further and I finally got frustrated. I canceled that one and ordered Paul Jackson's The Pop-Up Book. And it worked out beautifully. I've just started working my way through the book and already I'm addicted. I have been creating paper frogs for everyone I know. 

Here is my paper frog. 

This is about the simplest pop-up to do. It only requires two cuts and just a little folding. After a little bit of practice I want to start coloring them so they stand out a little more. I can see making frog cards for friends and family. Simple and somewhat impressive. 

Another simple one that I've been doing from the book is what I call the MC Escher staircase. I still have yet to come out with one that I've been completely happy with but here is my most recent attempt. The stairs aren't quite even but I have yet to bring out the ruler and X-acto knife. Both of those are needed for the more complicated designs. 

Here are two views of my staircase.

I have no doubt that I will get to the tougher patterns in the book. I've actually just enjoyed working the simple patterns to try to get the basic folds down. I will never be a great paper engineer like Subuda or Lothar Meggendorfer but I'm excited to learn.