Melissa Babcock Saylor is a founding member of Gallery Calapooia. She will be one of the featured artists at the gallery for the month of July.

Originally a watercolor artist, Melissa now works in cut paper. Her creations are whimsical and colorful. Melissa is mostly influenced by shape and color.  Her love of folk art is apparent in her work.

Most of the paper used in her work is hand painted by Melissa. Some book pages are incorporated into her work but most of the paper is made with a gel plate. This process involves putting paint onto a gel plate and then rolling the paint around with a brayer. Paper is then placed on top of the gel plate, smoothed downwind lifted carefully off the plate to expose the print.  Melissa loves the texture this process creates because it adds more interest to her artwork.

The switch to cut paper came around 2013 when she attended an illustration workshop with the Highlights Foundation in Pennsylvania. One of her instructors gave the workshop attendees an assignment in cut paper.  Saylor did the assignment and turned it in. The next day the instructors called her over and told Saylor she should be doing all her work in cut paper.  So, that is exactly what she did.  She started over in cut paper and has not looked back.