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Korean Army .....


After recently making the magnolia box with lots of time consuming cutouts required, this week I decided to make something a bit different. 


The beauty of this craft is that you can produce items in a comparatively short space of time or, you can spend a lot more time concentrating on fine details and take months to complete a project.

I had in mind that I wanted to create an item using  a piece of hanji paper that I bought on my recent trip to Seoul. It's a very busy, traditional design depicting an army of soldiers marching across the paper  carrying flags, riding on horseback, or playing instruments.

It reminded me of the re enactment of the changing of the guard ceremony that I've seen at the entrance to the Deoksu Palace in Seoul. 


The Royal Guards.........

The royal guards, called 'Geumgun' (Restricted Area Army), under the command of the Chief gatekeeper, use to be in charge of defending the Palace, similar to the Royal Guards at Buckingham Palace. 



















The complete procession during the Joseon Dynasty included the main gate-opening and closing ceremonies, military parades, and marching ceremonies.


When the unit watching the outer walls of the Royal Palaces arrives at the scene to relieve the unit watching the Palatial Gates, the ceremonies starts. 


It's full of pomp and ceremony and well worth a look at if you're in Seoul.

Back to my project .......

The paper I wanted to work with is quite a thick, fibrous paper which has been bleached out and then  the print placed on top.

I wanted to keep with the traditional theme so I cut out a chest with 4 drawers, a base  and a curved top to make it look like an old Korean chest.

It has a rustic look to the paper design which is reflected in the simple curves and shape of the set of drawers. 

Typically an item like this would have had an everyday use in a Korean household centuries ago. 


It could have been placed on a side table to store small pieces of jewellery or even used in a kitchen to store spices and small twigs of mountain herbs.



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