Eye Card

For a clinic I was rotating through at the time, I wanted to leave a note of gratitude as the team had been so welcoming and willing to teach me. I have grown an appreciation for the nazar amulet, symbolizing protection from evil and harm, and this coincidentally pertained to the specialty clinic I was at. I decided to employ the technique of paper quilling to create a 3D and layered eye. I had no idea how much paper I would have to use, and unfortunately did not have a paper trimmer to make even lines, so I used the edge of a clipboard and a pen to attempt to draw even lines by eyeballing them and estimated how many strips I would need for each colour (light blue, white, dark blue). I ended up needing to cut additional dark blue strips, but the quilling was the most difficult part of this card.

Each layer I added created more instability and stickiness as I glued and pressed the edges of the paper to the previous, like a growing toilet paper roll. Despite the uneven and unequal strips of paper I had cut, this ended up creating a remarkable textured appearance to the nazar amulet that was very pleasant to the touch. I did not have black paper at this location in Toronto, and was panicking about this until I realized I had a Dollarama fake leather notebook that was sitting on the side… the sacrifice of a little corner piece from the book ended up making the amulet what it is today.

I secured the black centre piece with superglue and although not depicted, I added a piece of light blue paper as a writing surface for the content of the card itself. This card was unique as it was one-sided. There was no need to create a design on the other side because it would be displayed on a wall.