Kirie: From photograph to cut image | Articles | Ant Smith

My First Kirie

©Maki Matsubara

Before creating my own kirie designs I wanted to practice the art so I looked for some good templates.

But when I couldn't find any I made one based on an image of Maki Matsubara's whale I found online.

I cut it out as well as I could.

It really was a joyful exerience.

Because it wasn't my design though, it felt like nothing more than a technical exercise. Or rather, a performance of a cover.

But like good art will, it has inspired me to do more kirie, to my own designs.

And to make my templates freely available, in case anyone else likes them.

Kirie is the art of making images by cutting out negative space from a single sheet of paper.

Well, the point is that the image is not assembled, you don't end up with various pieces that are then stuck down to make the image; its about cutting not collage.

So the design has to ensure that the negative space never fully isolates the positive space - there are no islands of positivity; everything joins up. Or rather remains joined once all the negatives have been removed.

It's quite a zen thing.

In fact it's fascinating because, it feels to me, the only way I can achieve such delicate cuts is by removing what is not wanted - rather than trying to cut round what is wanted...

It really is, a zen thing.

And I love anything that lets me get the scalpel out and cut, cut, cut.

It's an artform that exists both in the creative and performative spaces. Typically drawing or painting is done by the artist and then exhibited. But there is a tradition of creating kirie artworks as performance, making the cuts live as musicians play. Whether on stage or not, the rhythm of the cut process is performance. There is literally no going-back, no reworking. A cut is a cut and once made can never be undone. There is no eraser. You start at the beginning and you finish at the end and what you get is just what you get; the result of a unique and singular performance of the blade.

It seems like a realy simple idea, but it is full of subtle intricacy and intimacy.

Traditionally, it is also full of symbolism with organic motifs; leaves, flowers, sun rays etc...

A symbolism embedded in Japanese culture - kirie designs also translating to the kimono.

Symbolism I know little about, and have no desire to appropriate.

Nor do I want to appropriate other people's designs.

So I am making my own designs, with my own motifs.

Based on my own photography.

And in this article I aim to show how I do that.

Because really, you should do your own. Whether to my template or one of your own making. With kirie, the art is in the doing. Sure, there are masterpieces that take months to cut and totally blow you away when you see them. But at the same time I have watched Kiriken Masayo create the most amazing octopus in the course of a single workshop. Kirie truly is a performance art. Also, it is tactile. Feeling the textures created by the cuts is sublime. Looking at photograhs of kirie artworks would be like photographing rainbows in black and white or reading a recipe instead of tasting the meal. The surface itself carries meaning: the raised edges, the tiny bridges of paper, the way light catches the bevel of a cut. A kirie isn’t just an image — it’s a sculpture that quite simply, has to be touched.

First off, we need to find a photograph to work from and convert it into a cutable design...

The image process

Original Image

This is Oscar, a gorgeous parrot I photographed on our visit to Morndyke parrot sanctuary

This image will have a strong silhouette outline and also presents clear blocks of differing tone. In theory - like if you are a master at this kirie lark - any photograph can be turned into a kirie image, but since I'm just a beginner I chose something that would convert quite easily.

The downside of this approach is that the result lacks any real finesse, well compared to some of the masterpieces I have seen. There is no real sense of tonal gradation, of foreground versus midground - there are only simple blocks of tone. But this is okay for starters, these are the simplifications I chose to create a beginner's template: something that is difficult and rewarding to cut without being utterly impossible!

Tonal Compression

To start I converted the image to black and white and removed the background. I used photoshop™'s gross subject selection masking to separate the background (and turn it white) - the photograph of course is only an impression of the subject, it is in no way 'real' and the template I will make will only be an impression of this impression of Oscar. So there is no need to be slavish about the accuracy of the cut-out. In fact, the reference image must not dictate the process at any point, it should only act as a rough guide.

Part of the joy of kirie is how it can represent tonality with only 2 colours - that of the cut sheet and that of the backing the final piece is attached to. So for the cut template we are heading to a 2-tone image (with the amount of cut-out simulating degrees of tone) . So at this point I used a 'posterisation' to reduce the image to just 4 grey tones: black, dark grey, light grey and white.

I was tempted to use more than just 4 levels of grey, and perhaps for a more delicate work that will be needed, but at this point the image remains remarkably detailed so I felt the essence of Oscar would still come through.

Area Simplification

Although there are only 4 tones in the image now, those tones intermix and still provide a lot of finescale detail that could not itself be directly cut-out; and we wouldn't want to try and cut it at that level of detail because we are aiming for an impression, not a faithful rendition.

So next I laid down strong cut-lines around large areas of similar tone. I wrote a piece of software to identify the regions and to simplify the boundaries between them - but actually you could just draw them freehand - the only critical concern is that everything joins up. As we develop a template, every cut-line must join-up at some point, else islands will form that ultimately fall out of the piece as the cutting is performed.

We want our final template to be pure black and white, with black patches that fall away as they are cut-out leaving us with a single region of interconnected whites. This means the final image is a single piece of paper that we stick on to a backing. At the end of the process there is no assembly, the image lives entirely within the negative space of a single sheet.

Tonal Regions

Removing the original image now we can see the overall silhouette and the large areas of differing tones. The sharpest eyes will note there are 5 levels of grey here. The original image, and the proccess I am following are only guides - so I am at total liberty now to decide what level of tonality I want in each region, whatever my posterisation process told me about the original image. When I got to this point, it just made sense to fill the crown a little lighter.

Remember, all these regions will end up just black and white - with no greys at all. These grey levels are just informing how much material should be cut-away; with more to be removed in the darker areas than in the lighter areas.

The silhouette

Here we see the silhouette in its starkest form.

We could just cut this as it is and end up with a pretty nice image.

But it isn't exactly kirie because there is no sense whatsoever of tonality.

To achieve that we need to add more cuts...

Adding cuts

Here I have blended the original image back into the template and shown some of the cuts that I have added.

I did not slavishly follow the details of the original image, but I would refer to it as a reminder while I built-up the cuts.

Some of the cuts are about returning lost-detail to the image, such as the grooves in the tongue. But I didn't want too much of that literal interpretation. The finest cut-lines I was working with turned out to be about 6 pixels (or half a millimeter) - which is pretty finescale in terms of cutting paper, but is only around 50dpi in terms of detail resolution. Kirie is implicitly about representation more than details. This isn't a limitation, it is the nature of the beast. Nevertheless a degree of detail, seems to, matter.

Other cuts are more impressionistic, like the large-ish ellipses on the talons. They are nowhere near as detailed as Oscar's actual scales, but they give a good impression.

You will see in the final work that the hair-line (or crown) cuts and the shoulder triangles are highly impressionistic, with the tongue and feathers being more representational. I'm not sure I got the balance right in this case, although I am fairly pleased with the result.

It's also the case that the cuts serve two masters - first to create the detail impression of the subject and second (but perhaps more importantly) to create the sense of tone. The cut pattern is such that the wing feathers turn out to be about 50/50 black versus white, whereas the crown is much more white than black - so the head and face look much lighter than the wing and beak (which is mostly black).

Final Template

And this is the final cut template in pure black and white.

As a final test, I loaded it into photoshop™ (other, less corporate, image editors are available) and did a light-grey flood-fill of the white at very low tolerance to check that all of the white areas were connected. If any part of the image remmained white then not everything is joined up and some piece will fall out when the template is cut. Fortunately, I had got it right!

While drawing the cut-lines I mostly added white lines inside black regions, but for the face and crown I worked the other way round, adding black lines to white regions - it's just a matter of what makes most sense.

I printed it out at around 12x10cm which made the finest lines about a half a millimeter. I've made the template as an SVG file so it can be printed at any size. A larger version woould make for easier cutting!

Cutting

Something must perish for something to be born. Creation is a cycle. We cut down trees to make paper, to cut paper to make kirie. All creation commences with destruction. It's a zen thing.

You might think that drawing the template is the art of kirie, and then the cutting is but craft.

Because we are conditioned to think of these as distinct things.

We often talk about “art” and “craft” as if they’re different species of activity — art being visionary and elevated, craft being merely competent or decorative. But the more time I spend cutting paper, the more artificial that divide feels. The creation of an art piece takes the artist on a journey, from blank page to finished work. Art doesn't live inside meaning, not even within expression, it lives in the journey that the artist and their medium go through (and the journeys it inspires within its audience). Art is transformation. And nothing is more transformative than cutting (ask the Bonsai trees). If designing the template is creative art, then cutting it is perfomative art.

Every artwork is crafted, and every craft carries its own artistry. The distinction mostly serves a capitalist fantasy that a few “masters” produce transcendent objects while the rest of us make humble things. Kirie dissolves that boundary. The design is art, but so is the cutting. When you pick up a knife and begin cutting, you’re not just following a template — you’re performing the artwork, shaping it with your own hand, your own rhythm, your own attention. The paper slips and bends and twists under the blade-force as cut after cut opens it up. No two cuts are ever the same; even within a repetitious pattern.

Always cut the smallest piece possible, until the last. This maintains the structural strength of the piece as long as possible.

Always use the least force. It is too much force that causes over-cuts, slips and nicks (of finger tips). If the blade needs force, the blade needs changing; it is dull blades that cause accidents, sharp blades only cut what you tell them to. When a piece is fully cut, a light touch of the blade tip should lift it out. If it doesn't you either have not cut fully into the corners, or the blade is dull and ready to be changed. Never pull a snagging piece free, doing so will leave hang-nails, or worse will tear a delicate connection.

I make rounded cuts with up to a quarter turn on the wrist, thereafter turning the piece to complete the cut if needs be. This is because I use a scalpel that doesn't itself swivel. If you use a swivelling craft knife it might be easier, I don't know, I like the fineness of cut a scalpel gives me. BUT, constantly rotating the piece can put earlier cut regions under stress, so with a repetitious pattern I might make all the cuts of a given orientation before turning the piece. Turning the piece is commmon advice, but with very fine kirie patterns you need to be really careful not cause damage.

That said, a small number of breaks is quite okay, since ultimately the whole delicate piece is bonded to a supporting substrate - too many breaks though will spoil the look and might cause piece to fall away. With Oscar, I had trouble with the fine triangles. I had to apply a small patch and recut 3 or 4 of them - but that worked out fine. Better than screwing it all up and starting again anyways...

At times, as pieces have been cut out, you might find the fine pieces want to ruckle under the force of the nearby blade - if so place your finger tip behind the blade to hold things flat while cutting. And make sure the blade is keen, so the least force is required.

The template (download link at the top of this articcle) is an SVG, so it can be printed larger than its native size for an easier experience.

Once the cutting is complete, stick the delicate result to a piece of contrasting card (white on black is fairly traditional it seems) and enjoy the fruit of your labours...

If you use my template, or even my process, send me an image of what you made: me@antsmith.net

Kirie #2: Space Exploit

For my second self-designed kirie I wanted to exercise 'fine cuts'. In this case 'fine' means the 1mm strands of the net beneath the surface of the moon. A finest cut resolution of 1mm is equates roughly to 20dpi. Master cutters work much more finely than this at perhaps 100 to 200dpi. But I'm by no means a master cutter. Nor am I using specialist cutting paper, so 1mm is fine enough. Leastways I know these designs can be cut on everyday printer paper, I'm using a quite heavy 120gsm.

This time I started with one of my moon photos, and when you compare it with the final design you can see that by no means did the actuality of the photographic image strongly dictate the outcome. The photo gave me the overall structure, but more importantly allowed me to draw out intricate 'shorelines' which would have been impossible to imagine up. Well for me for sure.

The design itself, for me, shows how our moon may look once the free-loaders (I mean, free-marketeers, privateers, the BigTech FinDoms) get their hands on it.

Nasa & Musk are calling their current exploits the Artemis Project; they *say* because Artemis was the twin sister to Apollo. Aww, how sweet. Of course Artemis is also god of the hunt - and that's what's really going on... they're on the hunt for minerals. Nasa's own website says of Artemis "We’re going back to the Moon for scientific discovery, ECONOMIC BENEFITS, and inspiration"

Imagine laying claim to heavenly bodies. What arrogance. They will ruin it you know, of course they will.

The whole design, at 20cm square, took around 20 hours to fully cut over 3 days. Here's how it looked at the end of each day:

You can see I started by cutting all the tiniest pieces. Then I progressed to the grid pieces that lay on the 'shoreline', and thus the most intricate of the grid pieces. I wanted to cut these while the whole piece was rather solid, before too much material had been removed, since they are intricate.

However, before cutting out the rest of the grid, I moved onto the other major pieces. At this point I was more concerned about the overall delicacy of the piece than its stability. At first I was cutting out small pieces from a stable work, juggling the paper around to affect the intricate cuts, Laterly I was deferring cuts that created more delicate connections. The emphasis shifted from maintaining stability to avoiding delicacy (til the last). Advice to always cut the smallest piece is generaly good, especially when in doubt. But in reality as you are cutting you need to be maintaining balance (As much as the design allows) in the structural integrity across the piece. That's difficult to explain though. So if in doubt, just cut the next smallest piece; but do the intricate pieces first...

One has to constantly assess, what happpens to the next cut if I make this cut now. It's a zen thing.

When it came to removing the final grid pieces, they were all of them simple cuts - 4-sided shapes. I first cut all of the longitudinal edges. Then adjusted the piece once to then cut all of the latitudinal edges. I turned the cutting mat itself, not the piece on the mat. I had deliberately chosen to work on a small (A4) mat for this work, whereas normally I cut direct onto the A1 desk mat - which I could not have turned. I was super-aware of how delicate the piece would become.

A number of strands did snap, not too many. You can see in the result 1 misplaced strand (I challenge you to find it!). In one place I got 3 snapped strands that caused a T-piece (a really tiny T-piece) to fall out. Here I created a patch by gluing a small square onto the grid, fixing the T-piece to that, and then (once dry) cutting the patch back to the original design. Because the patch is on the back, it isn't seen. And this is a better solution than repeating the foregoing 18 hours of cutting.

Once the cutting was finished I mounted the piece onto a black backcard. Previously I had tried spray glue which gives a nice flat bond but the glue does spill out from under the cut design and gives a poor finish. This time I took some normal clear-dry PVA and mixed 10-20% of water into it. Then I dippped a make-up sponge into the glue and dabbed the back of the cut piece, This gave a clean bond BUT with a tiny little bit of water bubbling in one area. I'm yet to find the ideal glueing method. I'll keep you posted!

Kirie #3 and #4

Working from my own photographs ensures the 'art' I create is my own intellectual property - not so much because I want to exert such 'rights', but more because I don't want to rip other artists off in my endeavours (I did manage to contact Maki Matsubara to check that my use of her whale design was all okay). However, working solely from a photograph over emphasises realism, whereas kirie really wants to be created using symbols and motifs. So my next works took only elements from photographs (basically because I otherwise don't draw good) which I assembled into compositional narratives. Here's the cut results of them (also with downloaded templates).

We Come In Pieces speaks of my brother's suicide. The spikes around the head represent pressure, stress, anxiety, tension, fatigue, frustration and burden - or some such, there's seven of them. 5 of them point inwards because 7/5^ths is 1.4 and 1.4 is the percentage of men that kill themselves.

It looks like an explosion on a battlefield, but that the soldier in his gas mask is wearing a very suave outfit for his armour. Because he isn't a soldier, he's just a man. Any man. well 1.4% of men. And the armour isn't for keeping things out, its for keeping self in. "I'm, fine, look at my pretty clothes". And the gas mask isn't a symbol of survivial but of suffocation. Because that's what masks do, they suffocate.

Viva La Diva I subtitled this is my happy face and again contemplates the role masks play in our lives. Here a swarm of little mini faces are in turn twisted into performance (musical notes) by the Diva, with each sung note transformed into cross-for-eyes dead faces. Each moment performing in a mask is a moment stolen from our own true life, because we are not the facade. The masks we adopt are not our saviours, they are quislings.

On the surface this is a joyous image, such a fabulous head dress! But the song is just, a FADED FACADE.