Anna's Aquarium pot .......

My students have been working for a few weeks now on making an Umbrella Stand or 'large storage pot', and it's been an exciting process as they've constructed the pot from scratch and then they've had a larger 'canvas' on which to explore and use the Hanji paper.

I have 3 'large pots'. Living in a desert country I've little use for an Umbrella stand because it rarely rains here but, they're great for storing some of my special papers all rolled up, within visible sight and ready to be used.

The students followed patterns and cut out the cardboard and constructed the pots. That was the straightforward part and everyone's looked the same up to this stage. Next the ideas for what to put on them were determined, then they were changed then changed again. It's all a part of the creative processes.

I've had students say they couldn't sleep because they've had so many ideas going around in their minds and many people have said to me that they're not creative at all but they've been surprised at themselves when they've started making things and been able to materialise their ideas through Hanji.

One of my students Anna, started with some paper she'd bought in turquoise hues. The more she looked at it the more it looked like water and so the creative Hanji journey began. She wanted colour, movement, an underwater scene, grasses, fish and water. Ideas were tossed around, cutouts were made and after many weeks it all started to come together.

Take a look, it's a unique piece of Hanji art that started out as cardboard and paper and finished up as her very own creation. Well done Anna.

Comments

Lotus symbol in Korean culture .....

In traditional Korean Hanji art you can see many different designs of plants, animals, letters and insects. I'm sure you've wondered what they all symbolise as they are repeated so often and in many different ways. In this post I just want to take a brief look at the lotus plant and what it symbolises for the Korean people. I've used this design on a few articles but I never really knew the full meaning of what it represented until I started doing some research for my book. Even though many of us aren't Korean we can still use these designs and in so doing, translate a deeper meaning to our articles. Here are a just a few of my favourites from the easiest to the more difficult to cut out. The lotus flower symbolises creation, birth, liveability and reproduction and therefore it's one of the most important symbols in both Korean culture and its traditional religions. In both Confucianism and Buddhism

The Buddhist symbol, Hanji & Korean culture ....

When selecting designs for my Hanji pieces I tend to make stylistic choices as to what will look best on each piece but the Korean designs all have very deep symbolic meanings. None more than the Buddhist swastika (manja) design. ‘Manja’ (만, Man is “卍” and 만자, Manja literally means “letter Man”) is also called Srivatsalksana in Sanskrit. It is one of the thirty-two (32) marks of excellence of the Buddha and is said to exist on his hands, feet, hair and waist. For those of us in the West this is often confused with the German Nazi swastika symbol but in fact it's been around for about three thousand years. The swastika is an equilateral cross with arms bent at right angles and all in the same direction, usually to the right, or clockwise. It's a symbol of prosperity and good fortune and it originally represented the revolving sun, fire, or life. The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit swastika which means, "conducive to well

Online Hanji paper store, in English .....

I'm really pleased to be able to share with you this website where you can order a variety of Hanji papers from Korea and it's all in English !!! The store is based in Daejon, Korea. HAMINBRIDGE ( Thehanji ) was established by Moonyang Park in 1983. It's a family owned 2nd generation business and they have a factory in Junju. They also have a factory in China where some of the paper is made. The website is at www. thehanji.com and it provides a selection of specialty Hanji paper (Korean paper) and products. I ordered some papers from them recently to see what it was like and they were extremely efficient in dealing with the order and it was here in the UAE within 5 days so I was really impressed. The prices were good and they even have some on special, the paper is beautiful and the ease of ordering was amazing. They do sell rolls of paper, traditional papers and lanterns but overall I did think the range was a bit limited for what I wa

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