Papercutting Process
For years, I’ve been trying to find high quality papercuttings, scouring markets from Hong Kong to Beijing. Compared to what was available a decade ago, all the shops are now stocking generic plastic or felt monstrosities. Whether you go to a market stall or a Log-on, you will see the same lazy designs with cute cartoon figures of the coming zodiac.
Since the year of the goat [2015], I've kept a tradition of designing my own papercuttings, combining traditional craftsmanship with contemporary aesthetics and a sprinkle of humour. They usually involve the zodiac animal, nostalgic cartoons or some play on words.
The cutting process is very labour intensive, even when I’m batch producing with a blade instead of scissors. Not counting design time, it takes about 4-6 hours to cut a stack of 12. I usually only make a few dozen as gifts for friends and family.
Many have asked if I could ramp up production, but I’m mostly constrained by the strength of my fingers and forearms. Of course I have considered laser cutting, but you can’t get away from the problem of burnt edges. You would have to spray paint both sides, which would have a very different material finish from the traditional paper.
5 years after my first papercutting, I bought a Cricut Maker, which is a versatile cutting machine for thin materials. The above architecture themed Christmas snowflake was my first design, realised with gold sprayed acetate sheets. Initially it seemed like traditional calligraphy paper would be too soft to cut on the Cricut, but after lots of testing,
I had finally found a great solution.
This is the traditional paper I normally use, a very soft and thin large format sheet with a single side of the strongest red pigment you can imagine. It is used for both papercuttings and ink calligraphy.
The paper is extremely thin, which makes it very good for absorbing ink and cutting in a stack. This has typically worked to my advantage, until I tried to cut with a machine.
After testing combinations of different blade attachments, grip mats, cutting speeds, and papers from several stores, I finally found a solution that works! [Not the one above]
The winning recipe involves mounting the traditional paper on a red cardstock backing. Compared to a standard cardstock, I hope you can tell why I insist on using the traditional paper. Look at that subtle colouring. The unmistakable texture. The most important thing is the matte finish that is difficult to match. Even under a spotlight, the paper maintains a consistent bright red when viewed from any angle.
It seems every year my English-speaking friends ask about the biology of the zodiac. Is it rooster, hen or chicken? Is it rat or mouse? First of all, English is stupid. We did not need a completely different word to describe genders of each animal [Chinese has a similar obsession with breeds/species of horse and fish]. Secondly, Chinese is generally not very versatile for scientific use because you can’t really invent new words, only tack on additional words to existing ones. For most animals, they are grouped into big categories, with pre-fixed adjectives.
Year of the Ox [?] probably exemplifies the greatest differences between English and Chinese. In one corner, you have: cows, ox, oxen, buffalo, bison, yak, bull, bullock, cattle, bovid, bovine, bovidae, steer, heifer, springers, beeves and milkers. In the other corner, you can get away with describing all of those things as 牛. I think technically the most gender neutral and all-encompassing term would be
Year of the Bovidae, but I don’t think that will catch on...
There are around 1,300 cows of various species living in Hong Kong, commonly found on Lantau island and in Sai Kung. Some are native species while some were brought in for farming or milk.
I referenced a few of our local neighbours for the design: a male buffalo, brown cow and brown calf.
Did you know that unlike deers, both bulls and cows have horns?
We usually don’t see horns on cattle raised in farms because they are dehorned during childhood.
It was important to me that the initial design and cutting followed [my interpretation of] a traditional process. The tactile properties of the paper and the physical limitations of the blade have a strong influence over the shape of each cut. These little details give the aesthetic and the product its authenticity.
Anyone who’s familiar with Illustrator’s live-trace function [turning raster images into vector shapes] will know how frustratingly difficult it is to get the lines just right. It looks fine at a glance, but once you zoom into the individual shapes, they’ve lost their character and soul. Untreated live-trace files have tell-tale signs of blobby curves and rounded corners.
The subtleties of each line reflects the style of the craftsman. It was vitally important to preserve the precision, even showing some of the small mistakes of the physical cut. The process of fixing the first live-trace was so frustrating that I manually traced the subsequent two.
In the end, I was thoroughly satisfied with the final product. It was interesting to see how technology could integrate with traditions. Many of you know how old-school I tend to be with my design process. I consider this a successful experiment!
Congratulations if you made it all the way through my visual essay. I had fun producing this set of papercuttings. This website was an attempt to share some of my discoveries with friends. I’m hoping that I can do more experiments in 2021 and have even more products ready for the Year of the Tiger!
If you would like to support these projects, please place an order in the link below. I hope these paper-cuttings bring joy and style to your home.
Any feedback you have, positive or negative, will be very helpful for me.
Thank you for your support!