Hanji Happenings

As I've often mentioned, it's almost impossible to get books in English or in Korean on Hanji crafts  therefore, on my recent trip to South Korea it was one of my goals to source as many books as I could from the home of Hanji.   Over the years I've been looking both online and in book stores all over the world for any Hanji books I can find in English  and unfortunately, I've only come up with a very small selection thus far. During my trip to Seoul earlier this month it was important for me to go and check out the largest book store in Seoul, Kyobo, to see what they might have.  Finding the shop after so many years was quite easy  and the taxi driver knew exactly where to take me so once in the store I rushed up to the English counter and after some communication problems it was finally decided that there was nothing on Hanji in English. Plan A had failed but it really wasn't a total let down as I suspected this is what might happen but I guess I w

For those of you living the UAE, there's going to be a Hanji exhibition on at the RAKSA Sailing Club on Tuesday, May 6th from 5 pm onwards. Would love to see as many of you as can make it so bring along your Hanji pieces to display.

For an interesting textured effect and to create something that's quite unique you can use fabric under your Hanji paper. I found this set of drawers being made in the Hanji Doori store in Insadong, Seoul. I've never seen this effect before so was fascinated to have it explained to me by Catherine. Here you can see that strips of a very course  burlap   or hessian have been glued on to the top of this set of drawers to give it an interesting  texture, as well as a unique look. It was then covered with a thick black paper and lightly bleached to accentuate the weave. On the drawer fronts a finer fabric, possibly a finer burlap but I'm sure you could use anything that has texture, has been glued onto the cardboard before applying two coats of paper. The fabric has been placed in different directions on each drawer to give them all an individual look.   Although I'm not a great lover of the colour purple I do love the graded colours of these purple p

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 courses which range f

I've just returned from a very successful trip to South Korea where I was asked to give a talk titled, 'Hanji - After Korea' which was a presentation on how to continue doing Hanji once you've left and moved overseas.  At first I was quite apprehensive but I felt that I'd learnt so much myself over the last 12 years since leaving Korea that my journey was worth sharing if it was going to help others who wanted to follow in the same path.                             People are creative in different ways and expats in Korea are no exception therefore some decide to try   Hanji crafts during their stay in the country. Why? Because its different to anything they've ever done before. It looks beautiful, it's practical and it's a part of the traditional Korean experience. That can be difficult in itself as getting a Hanji teacher even in Korea, that they can communicate easily with and ask questions about the work, is a challenge.  The experience