Hanji Happenings

Well bags are almost packed, orders taken from those who can't make it on the trip and all is set for our 9 day trip to Seoul, South Korea this week. Oops no I don't have my passport it's in getting my new work visa.  I'll have to chase that up.................

Cutouts for the front and back - closeup Well I'm nearly there. Feeling happy about my designs and looking forward to putting it all together in the next few days. The box is ready with a tray inside and it has 6 compartments. The cutouts are done for the front, back and sides and the rest of the box will be black.  I don't want to detract from the lid too much. I plan on doing the inside of the box in a hot pink with the compartments on the tray done in different shades of pink. I'll show you the finished box in the next post. I hope you've enjoyed seeing this being created. It'd been quite a few weeks but I'm happy with the way it's going and the choices I've made.  The proof will be in the overall look.   Sloping lid compartment box Cutout for the sides - closeup cutouts for front, back and sides

Some of the papers I used  I've coloured the three cutouts of magnolias differently.  Firstly I've used coloured pencils to create shading on the white flowers and used a light colour as the background. I've used three shades of blue to fill in the banding in the centre. Secondly, I used a pale pink for the background and coloured the inner strips in 3 shades of blue. Thirdly, I left the magnolias as they were and I'm still deciding what colour to use as a background. I think it'll probably be taupe, which makes it look quite simple and yet classy. The banding is not coloured in on this one. My next job has been to decide what I'll do with them so I'm making a large jewelry box with a sloping lid, the exact size of the cutout. It'll have a tray inside and hinges on the back and a nice clasp on the front. I'll choose which cutout I prefer and keep the other 2 for a future project.

I've been working on my magnolias project this week but as I have a full time job as well I don't get as much time as I'd like to concentrate on it.  Despite that, it's going really well and I'm experimenting a bit at the moment with the 3 cutouts, doing each one in a different way. I'll show you them all very soon. Next week I'm off to Korea for a week with 2 of the ladies from my Hanji group we have a jam packed week in store as we go searching for Hanji supplies and we'll even fit in a visit to the Andong Hanji factory and a 4 hour lesson with their resident hanji artist, Gui-Sook Yang. It's all very exciting and going to be lots of fun. Whilst we're in Andong we'll be staying in this traditional Korean home in Andong Hahoe Village. Traditionally, Koreans slept on the floor and so will we. In an old-style Korean house, the ondol ( underfloor heating) warms up the thick masonry floor, making sitting, eating, or sleeping on i...

Some of the leaf cutouts.   I've now cut out most of the pieces needed to fill in the black cutouts. Here are a few more photos to show you  the progress.  I'll reveal the final results soon. Some of the magnolias in place. The back of the cutout showing the placement of coloured papers.

                          I've finally finished the cutout for the magnolias. This has been very time consuming but at the same time very rewarding to see the cutout take the shape of the beautiful magnolia  flowers. The next stage was to cut out white hanji paper to place behind the flower shapes. As I have 3 cutouts there have been a large  no of  shapes to cut. I've used a photocopy of my original colourings to cut the shapes then to attach them to 4 layers of paper and cut around them. Fortunately the pattern repeats itself so you can use the same template for a no. of flowers. Next I cut out the leaves in green and placed them behind the cutouts as well. Here's  how it's progressing ......... Cutout from the black paper. My original shadings for the cutouts. Flowers and leaves  ready to be copied. First placements.