Got a thing for woodgrain and silhouettes? Pen and Paper’s Jeeyon Shim just opened a store on Etsy that I’d love for you to visit with terrific original works and a great neutral palette.
Here’s what Jeeyon says in a very nice email sent earlier today, “As an art student, I’ve always felt mildly frustrated with how polarized art can be for a student; on the one hand, if you want to buy decent, appealing art it’s usually completely out of your budget, but on the other hand if you want to MAKE affordable art the equipment and resources are usually astronomical as well.“
Good point.
Jeeyon continues, “I try to make all of my pieces with this conundrum in mind. At the moment my shop primarily features handcut silhouettes with naturalist and mythological motifs, but I’ve also done a few mixed media pieces using vintage photographs and offer a few original drawings as well. I’m really looking forward to seeing what other explorations this project will guide me towards.“
Thank you so much for sharing your new shop with us and we wish you the best with your new business, yeah! Go indie!
(images from pen and paper)
November 28th, 2007 at 1:08 am
Oh I just LOVE Jeeyon’s work, and she is a lovely person too!
November 28th, 2007 at 4:48 am
this reminds me of blueyonder’s work:
http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=6453186
November 28th, 2007 at 6:01 am
Hi Lori – Just read your comment above and your email of concern. Don’t worry, I think it’s all okay. It appears as though this artist has a very different style to me than Blue Yonder. Many people are experimenting with silhouettes lately, branching out from the average portraits to creating goth inspired or even fantasy style motifs. Pen and Paper seems to have a different aesthetic and though both are using the silhouette as inspiration, I see distinct enough differences to write it off as coincidence vs. copycat.
But thank you again for your email and for alerting me to this and for your comment in this post.
Holly
November 28th, 2007 at 6:56 am
Hi, Lori –
I just wanted to comment to assuage any concerns you had about my artistic integrity. I can assure you that I hadn’t heard of Blue Yonder’s shop until I saw your comment; and decor8 is quite right – there’ve been a lot of silhouette motifs appearing in recent designs and illustrations lately. There’s actually another great Etsy shop named Optic Waste who uses old Victorian-inspired silhouettes and insect imagery to create really eerie and lovely pieces – I highly recommend taking a look at her work as well.
As far as where I find inspiration for my silhouettes, I’ve actually been working with them in my sketchbooks to explore how strong narrative and imagery can be communicated with the most minimal display of light: negative and positive space.
Anyway, I guess I’d like to conclude by saying that I’m sorry if you got a false impression from my work, but I hope you enjoy it all the same.
November 28th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Oh I am so glad you posted about her! I did too the other day I just love her work. Good job again Jeeyon, if you’re reading this.
and decor8, thanks for stopping by my blog. I felt so honored.
November 30th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
Well, I love silhouettes; I had purchased one of Jeeyon’s earlier today (spotted on DesignSponge) then saw the link in these comments and bought one of blueyonder’s, too! Both are amazing, so thanks, Lori, for mentioning the latter!
November 30th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
That’s cool that Design Sponge wrote about her too – the more press the better for these indie artists IMHO. I just know that when Jeeyon contacted me personally to blog about her, and I had never heard of her work before she wrote, that I had to share it.
I hope many other bloggers see this post and blog about her and all the other talented artists out there like Blue Yonder and many others.