Pass on the techniques of making papercraft—building paper houses for the deceased
1.The diverse appearance of paper house for the deceased
Most of the earliest paper houses for the deceased are three-section compound or four-section compound. Later, since the living expect the deceased to become gods and bless their posterity, paper houses for the deceased resemble the architecture of temples. That is, the living give a house designed for gods to the deceased. As time changes, paper houses gradually become the houses for the deceased to live in the underworld, with different styles such as Taiwanese style, Western style or villa.
The major craft techniques used in papercraft include binding, cutting, pasting, printing and painting. The process of manufacturing papercraft artifacts starts from handling bamboo material, which is usually ma bamboo. First, preliminarily process the bamboo into strips, and bind the bamboo strips together with paper strips (or cellophane strips) and paste as the structure based on the type and form of the to-be-manufactured object. After that, paste paper or colored paper on the structure as the appearance. Use paper flower or printed pictures to decorate it afterwards. In the end, polish the details to finish.
Cutting Makino bamboo into the bone structure for manufacturing papercraft artifacts (Video: provided by Xinxing papier mâché shop)
In the DIY paper house activity, we invited Ms. Wan-Yin Chang to teach us the basic approach to build a paper house.
(1)Build the bone structure of papercraft house: the method to manufacture the floor and the ceiling of the papercraft house are the same. The walls on both the left-hand side and the right-hand side are rectangular. The shape above is triangular. A stick of bamboo is put between the tip of both walls to make the house more stable.
(2)Fix the bone structure of paper house: dip some paste onto cellophane and use it to bind the bamboo strips.
(3)Construct the exterior walls of the house: Paste a layer of paper outside the bone structure. A paper house resembles human in its composition: bone, flesh and skin. Paste paper on four walls and the floor without the ceiling.
(4)The ritual of “opening the door”: Use knife to cut a door. There are two types of doors. If you cut a shape that resembles the Chinese letter “gong”, it would create two doors. One door is also an option.
(5)Decoration: Some students decorated their houses with corrugated paper. Others stick the house onto a bigger paper to create a yard.
Flow of manufacturing the paper house
