Paul's closed theater on the upper left, composed of curves, upper right, the card nearly finished with the original moving card designed by K. Takayama in red seen on table behind. Below left, the finished card open revealing the warrior inside. On the bottom right, the little theater seems illuminated like a real stage.
Forgive me a personal pleasure Paper Peeps, but today I must feature my husband Paul's newest creation. Truth be told, it's his brand spanking new Art Medium of Choice. He takes his collection of Japanese Samurai art and images, composes them, cuts them up and creates moving, dimensional pop-up paper diorama with them. This is an exciting development for him and an incredibly satisfying exercise in creative expression.
He loves all things Japanese, especially Samurai (likely having been one himself at some distant point), he loves all things paper, he loves all paper pop-up designs. Put them all together and well, you get... Goooooooood times.
This one sits enticingly partially open on a shelf in his office. Neither one of us can wait for his next one!
9 comments:
Goooooorgeous. Gorgeous.
I just relayed your comment to Paul, Ms. Mary (!) and he thrust both arms up into the air as if he'd just scored a goal for Arsenal!
Thank you so much for the sweet shout out!
Woop!
I can't wait for his next one, either! Any chance of a tutorial from your DH?
WOW! Artemistoo, that's huge compliment for Paul! Thank you! I'll tell him and see whether he'll have me take photos as he makes the next one and post them here as a pictobrowser slideshow.
DH? Does that stand for "Dear Husband"? or something else?
I agree, this is absolutely GORGEOUS!!!! I, too, love all things Japanese, but my special love is Geisha prints. I,d love to be able to make one of these!!
I'll tell Paul, Sugarbushfarm, thanks!
Geisha prints would make beautiful pop ups! If you make something, I hope you'll show it here!
And stay tuned... I'm going to make a tutorial for the next theater Paul makes so anyone can follow along and make something with the art the have. It's a super simple, versatile pop-up.
What a beautiful piece of artwork. I'm really looking forward to seeing a tutorial. Out of curiosity, where did Paul find the prints?
Anonymous, you coy yet sweetly complimentary reader you! Thanks, I'll tell Paul what you said, he'll be delighted!
As for the where of the prints--check it--there's been a huge wave of illustrated Samurai books hitting the market this year. The latest, and most inspirational that Paul bought recently was at the Barnes and Noble bookseller on a sale table with about 7 other titles--all were great for this sort of art/cutting up. Perfectly well-printed full-color images of an extraordinary artistry.
A specific one he just bought two of so that he could use every page of, is called:
The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi for under $10, This one exactly (http://www.amazon.com/Rings-Classic-Samurai-Sword-Strategy/dp/0760784574/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200434511&sr=1-7)--there are many of this text--a gorgeously designed volume, that is a shame to cut up, but hey, somethings but give way for art to exist, right?!
For other images to use in these pop-up theaters, Paul uses out-of-date calendars printed in Italy on nicely textured art papers, like the pretty ones from Cavallini & Co's Japanese Woodblocks featuring art by Ando Hiroshige circa 1853.
He's kept his eyes open when in little art bookshops, usually picking up any old book with Japanese art that touches his heart.
Same for buying Japanese patterned papers from fine paper shops such as Hiromi Paper in Los Angeles. They have mail order and have an especially great selection of Japanese papers.
(I won't recount here his obsession with finding a magic calligraphy pen that will draw spectacular Sumi-e illustrations automatically. He has come close with the self-filling brush pens available in Little Tokyo.)
Please let me know if you'd like any further details on finding good imagery for this sort of papercraft.
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