Hanji Happenings

Over this last weekend the annual Seoul Lotus Lantern Festival was held in honour of Buddha's birth. It's typically held the weekend before his birthday which is May 25th so this year it was celebrated between May 15th - 17th. Seoul Lotus Lantern Festival continues the tradition of making and hanging lanterns as symbolic offerings of light, wisdom and compassion in the Buddhist traditions. About one-quarter of Koreans are Buddhists, and the Jogye Order is Korea’s largest Buddhist sect. As the festival hosts, they  start the annual celebration at Seoul Bongeunsa temple near the COEX Conference and Exhibition Center, with an exhibition of traditional lanterns made from Korea’s traditional paper Hanji. Since it's inception in 2009 there have been some amazing displays of lanterns made by both Korean and International artists along the famous Cheonggyecheon Stream in downtown Seoul, Jogyesa Temple, Bongeunsa Temple, and the Dongguk University areas...

Here are some of the pictures I created for the Hanji Exhibition. They've been well received and I wanted to share with you all some of the thoughts behind the designs. I've put my own interpretations into the pictures combining Joseon Dynasty paintings, a selection of Hanji papers and cutouts of symbolic animals and patterns. INSPIRATION - To show different elements of the lives of the traditional Korean people.    Strength & Harmony - 
mustard & brown This earthy toned collage of Hanji patchwork includes a  Min Hwa (Korean Folklore) painting of a woman sewing which is representative of domestic harmony. The black geometrical cutout represents times when everything goes smoothly and is in harmony with itself whereas the tiger symbolises those times when life is tough  and people need amazing strength to get through.
 Work & Constancy
 - blue In this blue Hanji patchwork  I wanted to show the commitment to hard work by the Ko...

Over the last six weeks I've been working on making this 50 cm tall x 40 cm wide cabinet out of cardboard and Hanji paper.  Completed cabinet I now have instructions on how to make this so if anyone is interested I'll be posting it on my website in the next week or so along with about 5 other worksheets for sale from Sets of drawers to a divided box and lamps of different shapes and sizes.  These worksheets will enable you to cut out and make your own pieces of Hanji which is especially useful if kits aren't available.  It gives you the flexibility to create your own articles, add your own details and the satisfaction of knowing you made it completely by yourself. For my cabinet, about the size suitable for a bedside table, I choose a traditional white paper with writing on it for the inside of the cabinet and a brown mottled specialty paper with an imprint of cats on it for the outside.  I then trimmed it with a traditional border design in b...

Wow!  Where has the time gone!!  Since retiring from teaching ESL here in the UAE I thought I'd have so much more time for writing on my blog and researching for my book  but although these things are important to me it seems that my time has been spent in more creative, hands on pursuits, and it's been great.  I've been working steadily at setting up and running my Hanji classes, designing worksheets for more complex Hanji projects as well as creating ideas for and making new items of my own design. These last few weeks I've been putting together some items for a  'Christmas' Craft stall.  I say that tongue in cheek because for anyone living in the Middle East we all know that Christmas isn't celebrated over here but because the UAE population is made up of 80%  expats from all over the world  it's  an important time for us to think of family and friends back home. It's a time for sending off our Christmas cards and p...

I've just completed another umbrella stand and this time I've chosen a crinkled Hanji paper to give the piece texture and an almost marble type effect.  On the top and bottom I've used a pale blue underneath the beige coloured cut out, as a trim,  and it's papered inside with a piece of Hanji that has small Chinese writing on it. As I was papering the pot I had it lying on my table and guess who ...... decided it was a comfortable  place to sleep. I didn't think he'd stay there long once I started working on the piece but he wasn't phased by me having to rotate it every few minutes to put on the paper as he just  moved his position inside  and continued sleeping.  The joys of being a cat .......

'What cardboard shall I use for the cutouts'? 'How thick should the cardboard be'? 'What knife shall I use'? 'What Hanji paper shall I cover it with'? and most importantly, 'What will it look like? These were some of the questions going through my mind as I began a new project this weekend. For many years I've been admiring  pieces of furniture in Hanji that display an embossed effect. I first saw some at the Jeonju Hanji Festival back in 2001 and I loved the subtle effect that it gives to a piece and have been curious as to to how it's done. I've also seen it in some Korean  Hanji books  and It looked so simple and so I thought it  was  time to give it a try. I'd made up a tall Umbrella stand and I decided it was a good base on which to apply this technique. The first challenge was deciding what cardboard to use for the cutouts so I went with 1mm thick and cut out the designs. This was quite a challenge to say the l...