Hanji Happenings

What inspires us to make certain Hanji pieces? For me it's often  a dormant idea in my mind and it comes out years later when certain factors all come together.                        I took this photo many years ago at Haeinsa Temple just outside Busan. I'm not Buddhist but  when we lived in Busan I use to love going up to this hugely impressive Buddhist temple  because of the serenity of the surrounding hillside and the beautiful gardens. I could sit there for hours and just take in the views, peace and tranquility of the space. The biggest downside for me was that I wasn't always that fit and the Buddhist temples are usually set high up in the mountainside and require a lot of uphill climbing before you get to see the temple and the wonderful views.  In this photo I was looking back down the long, winding path I'd just climbed and it was ...

Hanji Doori is a shop and it also has a great online web page(in Korean) where you can order all of their supplies.  The shop displays a large range of Hanji craft supplies and on this trip to Seoul I found it tucked away on the 3rd floor of a building in Insadong. You can  buy, papers, cutouts, molds, hardware, kits with paper, kits without paper, brushes, glues and electrical fittings for lamps. As is often the case, these shops are discovered by word of mouth amongst the expat community and I became aware of its location through the networking I was able to do at the presentation 'Hanji - After Korea' in Seoul, last week.    It was great to walk into the shop and find a lovely lady, Catherine, who spoke very good English because she had spent some time in New Zealand, and she was able to answer all my questions about Hanji.  The shop has a great range of neatly set out products and a workroom where students can take 3 months cours...

Tray with relief work This week I've been working on a different, very simple technique that I haven't used for many years.  It's adding texture to an article by using cutout cardboard shapes.   Now these are really impossible to cutout by hand so you'd need to buy the ones that have been laser cut already from a Hanji shop.  I picked up a few on my recent visits and I just felt that I wanted to experiment a little. Closeup of tray I made a tray to best display the cutout in a smaller article then covered it in mottled paper to give the effect of wood.  I placed one of the lighter sections of the paper in the middle then, when the paper was quite wet and mold-able with the glue I began pushing it into the shape. This took quite a long time and then I wasn't happy with the overall effect. Because of the markings of the paper the shapes beneath the relief didn't stand out so I carefully bleached the paper on top.  This then achieved the desi...