Kirigami, the art of paper cutting

                             

The remnant of the cold/virus I've had since last week-end kept me indoors one more day. Tomorrow is a teacher workday... I will be ready to get back into my classroom. It has felt and looked like winter around here for several days, and I'm feeling a bit satisfied about that. A good, cold, dreary winter always makes spring that much more glorious in the coming.

Yet these days have been anything but dreary... the sun is shining, the skies are clear, and the roads are safe to drive on. However, I've stayed inside and piddled and dawdled all the day long. I've studied, searched on the internet, responded to emails, and visited some of your journals. I've installed the new Yahoo! Music Jukebox since I had failed to do it back in August when Music Match Jukebox expired. Yep, been at the computer all morning. Thank you all for your concerns... I am getting better. Just an occasional throat clearing cough.

Kirigami ... the Japanese art of paper cutting. Origami is the art of paper folding. Actually, Kirigami combines both, folding and cutting. Many of you are already familiar with it, might even have done it without realizing it.... remember those snowflakes you cut out as a kid from folded paper? Or making a chain of dolls or people holding hands? Those are the simpler versions of paper cutting.

Here is some history: First came that Chinese invention of paper from wood pulp. The word paper comes from the Egyptian word papyrus, a plant that grew along the Nile. The Egyptians had mastered the skill of making sheets of papyrus for 3,000 years before the Chinese learned to make it from wood pulp around 104 A.D.

Still,you have to give credit to the Chinese for finding a more practical resource to make paper: trees. Papyrus didn't exactly grow in very many places, and wood pulp was more widely available around the world. It didn't take long for people to find ways to use the new paper product other than for writing. Red was a predominant color in the Chinese paper cuttings. Here is an example... click on link.

In Mexico, paper cutting is called Papel Picado. The Aztecs of pre-Hispanic Mexico used the bark of mulberry and fig trees to make a paper from which they fashioned colorful flags and banners to decorate their temples during rituals and festivals. Present day papel picado is made from colored tissue paper. The colors are chosen for specific festivals, depending upon which holiday is being celebrated.

In Poland, it is called wycinanki (vee-chee-non-kee). Bright colors of circles, roosters, stars, and flowers arranged symmetrically were popular designs that decorated homes from the mid-1800s. Traditionally, they would whitewash their walls and adhere the delicate cut-outs to the walls to decorate for the Easter season. Here is a web site with some very intricate examples of wycinanki by Susan Throckmorton. If you have a minute, it's worth checking out.

The Germans called it scherenschnitte, and they may have been the ones who brought it to our country. Think early Pennsylvania Dutch designs. The link in this paragraph will take you to an artist's web site who does work in that style.

I'm not going to give a big lesson on paper cutting here, just wanted to show you what I've been playing around with in this state of semi-hibernation. I'm leaving some links for your own perusal... the works you'll see if youbranch out from this journal are far more exquisite and elaborate than my own fumblings.

                                  

The paper cuttings, my own I might add, that you see spread across my dining room table, are all simple by comparison, but even so they took a great deal of time. I started them on Friday evening while I waited with excitement for that winter weather advisory we got the next morning. Each of the above designs come from a single sheet of copy paper, to give you an idea of size. 

The six colorful trials below show some of the ideas I came up with as I thought about how to teach it to my third graders next week. My lesson plan includes showing the kids some examples (mine as well as some from the internet), demonstrating how I do it, then giving them precut strips of paper on which they will draw their own design to cut out. To simplify it, I used an 8 inch by 2.5 inch strip, folded in half twice. This thickness can be cut easily with a sharp, school-style pair of scissors. The two in the middle, yellow and pink side by side, were the easiest to do as the shapes are basic and easy to get to from the sides of the folded paper. I may start with those for the class. The others required a little more finesse, if you will... careful cutting and handling of the paper.

                            

The ones below are the same as above, just a closer look. They are each about a half sheet of the brighter tones of copy paper. I included the little 2.5" x 4" white drawing to show how I draw each design to complete 1/4 of the final piece ... the paper is folded in half, twice.

Though the above designs are my own, I do have a book that I bought over the Christmas holiday from Barnes and Nobles. It provides more thrilling examples that I can follow, but are difficult for a child.  Which is why I'm taking what I'm learning from the book, and translating it into third grade simplicity.

Here's a picture of the book in case you are interested. Those little Cutter Bee scissors are great for this kind of work, but any small, sharp, pair of scissors will do this level of work.

                                                      

I have to add that it took nearly as much time typing up and entering this post as it did to cut out all those designs!

Finally, a shout out to my brother Joe, his wife and their two daughters, one of whom was married on Saturday in sunny California. Congratulations to my newlywed niece, Wesley and her husband, Robert. May you both have a long and prosperous life together. My card and a letter are forthcoming!

I almost forgot... I don't think anyone can top the work of Peter Callasen ...talk about elaborate! Amazing doesn't even describe the wonder of his work. He takes paper cutting to a new level, three dimensional sculpture. You have got to visit this website if you are interested in paper sculpture, or even if you are not. It's a trip for the eyes and the mind. How does he do that? I'd love to see a video of him at work.

 

Thank you, Sher (wunzuponatime), for sending me that email of Peter's work just as I was doing all these papercuttings... verytimely of you!

Tags: kirigami, scherenschnitte, wycinanki, papel picado, papercutting, Peter Callasen, blogplug