Visiting your parents’ house, sleeping in your younger self’s room, it’s a trip down memory lane. Sometimes I would open drawers and find forgotten objects and journals, not always linked to pleasant memories. But other times, it will remind me of craft obsessions from long ago.
On this fourth day of this Christmas writing streak, I am going to talk about one of these: découpage.
For years, I painted, cut, glued, varnished all sort of new or old objects: plates, glasses, wooden boxes, etc., which were then offered to friends and family for Christmas, Easter and other occasions. It’s been over a decade since I’ve done any découpage, and I haven’t seen much of it around, but probably because I tend to gravitate around mostly fiber arts right now.
Also today I learned something new. This type of art is actually ancient: already around 1100 farmers in China, and monks in the Middle Age in Europe used strips of paper to as decoration. In the 17th centuries in Venice, découpage was used as a cheaper and faster imitation of a Chinese lacquerwork, called arte povera/lacca contrafacta.
It all started with some cute decorated paper napkins and PVA glue mixed with water, and it quickly escalated to all sort of varnishes, paints, and techniques. Since most of my creations were meant to be presents, I couldn’t find many artefacts, but here’s a couple of them.
The pictures look terrible, I know, it seems that for the new year, I should pick up my proper camera again and step up my picture taking game.
For now, here’s a list of sources and interesting links, and see you tomorrow for day 5:
Beginner’s guide to decoupage: Get involved in the prettiest papercraft
Lacquerwork on the Encyclopedia Britannica.
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