Preparing A Cartoon
A cartoon is the completed drawing of a design, ready to be transferred to the
stencil paper. If the design is a repeating motif, care must be taken to match
the lines precisely, so that the flow of the pattern is not interrupted in the
final yardage.
-Begin by roughly sketching the in details of your design, drawing right up to
edges of the paper.
-Flip the sheet over (back side up) and fold the top and bottom edges to meet in
center, aligning with care.
-Ignore the center boundary (edge of paper) as you fill in details of the
design.
-Finish by opening your design sheet out flat and filling in any additional
design details to the center section.
-Clearly define areas to be cut away (negative space) and areas to be left in
tact. Fine details may be adjusted later while actually carving the stencil paper.
-Measure your drawing. Add one to two inches at top and two to three inches to
the other three sides as a border.
-Cut shibugami to this adjusted (borders added) size.
Sometimes minor design irregularities can cause larger scale, undesirable
under-patterns to appear, even though the design may look well balanced at this
stage. If distortions are discovered after you are well underway with the
pasting, it is too late to make corrections. So, take a moment to test the
effect of the design by making several photocopies and taping them together, or
by tiling the image in your graphics program. Stand back and take a look at the
over all affect of the repeat. Now is the time to make any necessary
adjustments.
When you are satisfied with your design, transfer the image to the stencil
paper. There are a number of ways you may do this. If your paper is small
enough, you may photocopy your drawing directly onto the shibugami. You may
also use carbon paper to transfer the design, or simply tape your cartoon to
the stencil paper and carve through both layers.
copyright John Marshall, 1992
