Hey guys! Don't know if you guys still read these, but since I've been a bit more free (almost done with the semester! Woo!) I've finally gotten around to editing and uploading a ton of photos from my trip to Japan Dec 2012 - Jan 2013.
I'm slowly adding them to FB, Tumblr, and DA, but they're all available on Flickr right now.. Go check it out if you're interested - I'll be adding other things later, too! Thank you! It was a pleasure having you in class. Follow me! Facebook | Tumblr | Flickr | Etsy | DeviantArt
Today's topic is Kirigami - the art of cut paper. Unlike Origami, which is primarily folding, Kirigami involves both folding and cutting. There are some really awesome/intricate kirigami designs out there, but here is one really simple (but still cool!) design that I often do with scrap paper when I'm bored!
It's basically like those snowflakes we all made in elementary school, in that you fold a square diagonally over and over again, and cut designs in it. You can make the lines as big or small as you want, and the smaller you do it, the longer the final product is (I ended up with something from printer paper that hangs about 5ft from my ceiling). The hardest part is gently peeling the layers apart.
Part of my ceiling.. It started as a creative use of my (pink) electricity bill. Haha. Third one was made using random wavy cuts and unfolding in an interesting way!
Try mixing it up with wavy shapes and such, too! The only rule in this case is that the line must come from one side, and can't touch the other, but you can do S/U-shapes all you like. Language Notes!~ Kirigami (切り紙） 切る (kiru) - Verb meaning "to cut" 紙 (kami) - Noun meaning "paper" Origami (折り紙) 折る (oru) - Verb meaning "to fold" 紙 (kami) - Noun meaning "paper"
Rice field paintings! Leave it to the Japanese to even take their crop-growing to an artistic level. Every year, a group of people in Inakadate, Japan get together to lay out an image design in the field. Then, they spread out various types of rice and wait. There are some pretty neat examples out there, as they've done it several years in a row. Here are a couple of my favourites:
Here's a time-lapse video of the rice being planted and growing:
All images and the video were retrieved from pinktentacle.com. They are licensed under Creative Commons 3.0.
Today's Japanese craft is called kintsugi (金継ぎ). The word itself can be broken up like this:
金 - Kin means gold
継ぎ - Tsugi means patch
As the name implies, kintsugi is essentially patching (ceramics) with gold. The concept came around in the 1400s when a nobleman broke a cup and sent it to China to be repaired. It was returned repaired with metal staples, as was standard at the time. However, the owner disliked the appearance of it and hired Japanese craftsmen to take on the task of making it more aesthetically pleasing. They came up kintsugi, which involved sealing the cracks with a lacquer and gold powder mixture. This not only emphasized and beautified the breakage, it often encouraged people to more frequently "accidentally" break their pottery!
Below is a short video about kintsugi craftsmen:
And here is a picture of something I made a couple years back in a ceramics class.. Parts of it were inspired by kintsugi - some legs broke off by accident, some were on purpose, and I thought this would be perfect for it - though I didn't use lacquer. I used metallic acrylic paint, wire, and metal sheets!
