I have recently been working on a number of papercuts of felines, Big and
small cats.

This shows the sequence of work in progress of a tiger's face.



First of all, I drew out the face to size, based on a tiger that I saw at Hamerton
Zoo in Cambridgeshire. I drew onto tracing paper in coloured pencils, giving me
a template to use when I'm cutting the papers.




Then I chose the variety of papers that I wanted to use, although I would modify
some of them later.




Using an ochre paper made from waste fibres from the beer industry, I began to cut
out the shapes which will reveal the background. I draw and cut from the back
of the paper, which makes a good clean cut on the front side, using a sharp scalpel.




Then I cut smaller pieces of paper for some of the features.




Now I modified the papers in places by spraying with acrylic paint.




This shows all the layers put into place, allowing any adjustments before I stick
layers onto the background colour.




The whiskers are usually the final touch, and often need tweezers to get them
into position.