Cover news reporter Liu Kexin
Smiling tiger holding a string of firecrackers, yuanbao tiger holding yuanbao and hats are happy, holding red envelopes in both hands, jumping tigyu tigers with happiness, holding "the year of the tiger", the big-eyed tiger who rushed to pay homage to the New Year... In the hands of Jiang Xuechun, a paper craftsman, a piece of paper has been arranged and combined to create a vivid and lively cartoon tiger image.
In the Xinjin District of Chengdu, there is a group of paper craftsmen. Jiang Xuechun and her friends were here, transforming the notes into various shapes, filling the frames, and making the cute paper tiger paintings we saw.
Jiang Xuechun's paper works
It seems simple, but it is actually time-consuming
The idea of the Yan paper tiger painting came from a guest who had previously asked Jiang Xuechun to customize the Yan paper work. Guests sent paintings of tigers to Jiang Xuechun and asked for a custom paper painting. The notes were shaped into different shapes on Jiang Xuechun's hand, and they were collaged one by one according to the lines in the original color painting. Some are round, used to represent the tiger's round claws and eyes, some are wavy, transforming into a hat on the tiger's head, and some are semi-circular, woven into the tiger's ears. Jiang Xuechun introduced that this is only one of the manifestations of derivative paper, which is generally used in flat paintings. In these several paper tiger paintings, in order to highlight the three-dimensional sense, Jiang Xuechun also used a more complex form, that is, a roll paper collage, used to make local yuan treasures, firecrackers and so on.
"Although it looks relatively simple, it is actually very time-consuming," Jiang Xuechun said, the whole painting is 7 inches in size, even if she has been doing paper process for eleven or twelve years, it will take an afternoon to do it.
Paper-cutting is no better than paper-cutting, and paper-cutting has been included in the list of representative projects of national intangible cultural heritage earlier, which is well-known to everyone. After the introduction of paper from the West to China, it has not yet been understood by more people. Derivation, taken as "derivation, derivation", refers to the formation of pieces of paper art through the evolution of paper strips in shape and color. In order to let more people know about this process, Jiang Xuechun and her partners have been called "rolled paper". The image of "rolling paper" is vivid, and the strips of paper are transformed into various shapes through rolling, pinching, folding, rubbing, twisting and other techniques, and then through ingenious combinations, forming a three-dimensional and vivid pattern.
The process of deriving paper is divided into three stages: sketching, part making and part fixing. Part making refers to making strips of paper into different shapes. The paper strip is rolled tightly first, which is called "tight roll", and after it is spread out, it is called "loose roll". These loose rolls are then prepared into a variety of different shapes of rolls, such as unwinding, teardrop roll, curved roll, heart-shaped roll, eye-shaped roll, leaf-shaped roll, etc., with the previous "tight roll", combined into a paperwork. Jiang Xuechun said that in the past, when the conditions were not very good, he used wall calendar paper to cut by hand, but now he has more choices, the thinnest paper can reach a width of only 1 mm, and other specifications of 3 mm and 5 mm are also common.
Between the ages of 5 and 75, they are learning to make paper
More and more people come to Jiang Xuechun to learn paper. Jiang Xuechun told reporters that the youngest student is only 5 years old, and the oldest student is a 75-year-old grandmother. She saw that whether it was the necklaces and brooches made by the children, or the plants and flowers made by the grandmother, they all felt happy and satisfied from the paper, and Jiang Xuechun felt that he was already very satisfied.
When the Spring Festival of 2022 passes, Jiang Xuechun has more plans to advance. Her mother always told her that young people now do not cultivate the land, and the twenty-four solar terms are no longer remembered. Jiang Xuechun thought that if we could pass on these folk traditions through paper reproduction, it would definitely be a good thing. She introduced to reporters that after the Spring Festival, she will begin to try to use paper to make crops and flowers and plants that represent the twenty-four solar terms, so that traditional folk customs can be remembered by more people.
Although he had been doing it for eleven or twelve years, Jiang Xuechun could not find a work that he was very satisfied with. The cheerful craftsman said somewhat shyly, "I am very satisfied with every pair I make, and after a while I look back and feel dissatisfied." Craftsmanship always has to improve. ”
She used to only take Yan Paper as a hobby, but now she has more sense of responsibility, "At the beginning, many people still don't know Yan Paper, and now when I go out, when I hear someone say 'I know this thing', I still have a sense of accomplishment in my heart." Now I just want to do it day by day, so that more people can realize the charm of paper," Jiang Xuechun said.
(Photos courtesy of interviewees)