Hans Christian Andersen

The Man

Hans Christian Andersen was an amazing paper cutter. Not just sort of good for a writer. His cut paper pictures wink across all this time. I was already deep into this medium when I stumbled upon collaborating as a writer with this master of the art. (Collaborating implies that he had some choice about it which he did not.) Then I illustrated the book with the technique of cut paper just as I had with my earlier children’s book Cinderella (As If You Didn’t Already Know the Story). An odd coincidence to say the least seeing as the storyteller Andersen himself was a notorious cutter of paper. Then again, maybe it is not a coincidence at all, but divine synchronicity.  

Andersen never made images with scissors that were intended to illustrate his stories. More they were little presents he made for children he cared about.  (Which come to think of it is something I have begun doing, but more about that later.)

As my blog-linking skills develop I will show more paper cutting of Andersen’s (and around the world). It is a medium in which people have expressed themselves in every corner of the globe.  I like that it is cheap and binary, and tends to be a crazy mix of figurative and abstract. The paper is there or it is not there: These are the choices. Repetition and chance play an integral part in a process that is like a child’s game.  To tell you the truth you cannot make a bad picture with cut paper.

 I did not include any of Mr. Andersen’s cut paper in my recently published Thumbelina, Tiny Runaway Bride. Probably I would not have been able to get permission.  Interesting that Andersen also combines writing  with pen and ink next to the cut out paper images. I love the way that looks.