Chinese folk artist creates glittering paper-cutting artwork using copper foil

Rao Baolian, a folk artist in Foshan City, south China's Guangdong Province, creates a copper chiseling cut-out work using a wooden mallet and a steel chisel with a ball at its point. (Photo/Chen Jimin)

Using a wooden mallet and a steel chisel with a ball at its point, Rao Baolian, a folk artist in Foshan City, south China's Guangdong Province, has been busy creating glittering paper-cutting style artworks by making dots on a piece of thin copper foil first and then connecting the dots to create a dazzling picture, Chinanews.com reported.

Copper chiseling cut-outs is similar in form and style to paper-cutting artworks, with the special kind of paper-cutting art that Rao engages in being a unique traditional craft of Foshan with a history of more than 800 years.

As the most outstanding student of Chen Yongcai, a national-level representative inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, Guangdong paper cutting, Rao has searched all over the country for suitable materials for making copper chiseling cut-outs, and has improved the creative techniques used to make increasingly more vivid works of art. The traditional approach adopted by craftspeople when creating patterns on copper foil only involved engraving patterns on one side of the copper foil, but Rao invented a new method of tapping the back side of the copper foil after finishing the front side in order to create a relief sculpture-like effect, making copper chiseling cut-out works even more attractive.

Rao has also tried to use the pigments adopted in Tibetan Thangka paintings to color her works. Traditional copper chiseling cut-out works only have one color and the color comes off easily, Rao said, explaining that she decided to try using the pigments found in Thangka paintings because she heard the color in these paintings can avoid fading for a thousand years.

Most of the pigments adopted for use in Thangka paintings are made from natural stone powder and are rich in color, Rao added.

In an effort to carry forward and pass down the traditional craft, Rao recruits 12 students every three years. She will assemble the third batch of her students this September.