Art Deco Hanji lamp ......

Last week one of my students came along to class with a lamp where the shade had been broken and wondered what we could do to make a new one for it. She wanted it to look Art Deco, black and white, not too big and something that threw out plenty of light, all of this using Hanji techniques.

There's nothing like a new challenge !!

ART DECO - 'It is an eclectic style that combines traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials. The style is often characterized by rich colours, bold geometric shapes and lavish ornamentation ...... 'During its heyday, Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance and faith in social and technological progress.. - Wikipedia

This was never going to be a traditional Korean Hanji project but I was going to be able to use a lot of techniques that I'd recently learnt in Korea and I could also use Hanji paper .

After researching and pondering over photos of Art Deco designs for a few days I remembered that I'd just purchased some perspex sheeting in various thicknesses and thought this would be a good start rather than using cardboard which would block portions of light from the lamp on this small shade. I made a pattern of an uncomplicated shape and started cutting it out.

After ensuring that the shape fitted the frame well I glued it together with contact adhesive. I'd tried using instant glue but it didn't seem to work, but I'm sure there are probably better options than contact adhesive out there so I need to find them before tackling another project similar to this.

I then covered it both inside and out with a very fine white Hanji paper to give maximum output of light to the shade.

The corners were supported with triangular shapes and they were there to act as something the prongs that support the shade could sit on. I wasn't happy with the fact that they could move a bit so I made small U shaped guides out of plastic for the prongs to sit into and to prevent the shade from moving around.

Next step was to cut out the Art Deco design out of black paper, glued them on and finished it off with a few coats of varnish to protect the paper.

Art Deco Hanji lamp shade

Another successful project. I'd do a few things differently next time but overall I was pretty happy with the results.

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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