Decoupage technique. Decoupage for beginners. Decoupage instructions.
Decoupage
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People at all times have sought to decorate their homes in all available ways. To do this, they have used needlework, mastered various types of arts and crafts. Among them, a great role was played by decoupage. They decorated furniture and various household items using the Decoupage technique. In the last century, decoupage was very popular. And even today the interest in this technique has not faded, and, on the contrary, has strongly grown.
Along with traditional decoupage, other techniques are also being developed. Decorating with the Decoupage technique takes a lot of time, patience, accuracy and effort. Decoupage has always been considered an art for the poor because it doesn’t require much money. Today they sell special materials, like decoupage cards or napkins, but you can also use ordinary pictures.
Thanks to decoupage, simple interior objects are modified so that they look like works of art. This technique can be mastered by anyone of any age. It does not require a special room, and small items can be decorated right at the ordinary desk.
Decoupage technique can be done on a variety of surfaces and using a picture painted on any base.
The decoupage is a great way to relax and take a break from your immediate problems. In addition, you can create a beautiful product in 2-3 days. All works made in this technique are different from each other, even if you use napkins with the same patterns. Every craftsman has his own style, everyone decorates his work, guided by personal ideas and taste.
Decoupage technique. What is decoupage art.
The word “decoupage” translates from French as “to cut out”. It is a decorative technique of working on furniture, dishes, fabrics. The technology of its performance is a careful cutting out images from various materials, such as paper, leather, wood, and gluing them or fixing in some other way on the surfaces intended for decoration. This type of arts and crafts is quite painstaking, requiring patience and a lot of time. You may need to make several attempts before you’ll be satisfied with the result.
The decoupage technique has now received a second birth. It is used all over the world – people are decorating trays, sundials, boxes, dishes, Christmas decorations, handbags, packages, clothing, etc. In addition, it is used in the design of exclusive interior items and fashion accessories.
Nowadays along with traditional decoupage when a glued picture is covered with many (up to 40) layers of varnish, there is a decoupage of napkins and fabrics. Besides, computer innovations are used in this technique, such as three-dimensional decoupage, or using different pictures printed on a photocopier or printer.
In stores, it is easy to find a variety of materials that you can use to decorate a variety of surfaces: ceramics, wood, fabric, candles, metal, etc. In the Decoupage technique, you can apply gilding, crackle, aging, volumetric and artistic decoupage. Among styles, used in decoupage, the most famous are provence, shabby-chic, Victorian, ethno, simplicity.
Decoupage history
The history of the Decoupage technique begins in the early Middle Ages. The first mention of decoupage goes back to the XII century when Chinese poor people made beautiful paper for decorating lanterns, windows and other things. It is believed that the experience of the Chinese masters was adopted by the nomads of Eastern Siberia. They used colored paper to decorate the walls of mounds and household items.
As an art, this technique was first mentioned in Germany at the end of the XV century. People began to use cut-out pictures to decorate furniture. Polish and German masters have been decorating furniture with paper cut-outs for several centuries. For example, Poles folded sheets of colored paper and cut out various geometric shapes, styling them as flowers, animals and birds.
In Venice, in the XVII century, there was a peak of passion for the Decoupage technique. That was the time when furniture was decorated with pictures in Japanese or Chinese style. It became extremely trendy. It was used to decorate all the fashionable houses. The demand for it was great enough, and tradesmen could not satisfy it. That’s why Venetian craftsmen began to make similar pieces of furniture. These items came to be called “lacca contrafatta”, which in Italian means “lacquer” and “fakes”.
The woodworkers specially hired people who copied the elements of engravings and paintings of famous artists with the help of colored paints and paper. Then they glued these pictures on the surface of the furniture and covered them with several layers of varnish. The result was beautiful furniture that resembled pieces made by Japanese and Chinese craftsmen.
At the same time, wealthy people invited famous artists to paint ceilings, walls, and furniture. Prices for such furniture and the work of famous painters were very high. Only the very rich could afford it. In parallel with this, another trend in artistic decoration was developed, in which simple cheap drawings were cut out, glued on the items and then everything was covered with varnish. This was much cheaper but was just as successful as its original form was. Much later in Italy, this art began to be called the “art of the poor”. Nowadays the pieces of this genre are very popular. They are sold at auctions for astronomical sums of money. In addition, many contemporary masters have begun to imitate this art and create their own pieces of furniture.
During the XVII-XIX centuries, the Decoupage technique flourished in European states. Even at the court of Louis XV, furniture made with decoupage was appreciated. Many aristocrats, such as Marie Antoinette, Lord Byron, Madame de Pompadour, Matisse, Dandy Brummell, Picasso were fascinated by decoupage. And they decorated with cut-out patterns not only furniture but also wig blanks, caskets, screens, various toiletries.
Special mention should be made of Mrs Mary Delaney, who lived in England from 1700 to 1788. This talented woman was closely acquainted with King George III, Queen Charlotte, William Hogarth, Jonathan Swift and Sir Joseph Bankey. In her 71st year, Mary began to create works with botanically correct reproductions of flowers and plants. She cut paper, hand-painted it, and glued these pieces into an album. She worked for 17 years on the “paper mosaic”. She had to quit this craft because of poor eyesight. Currently, her work is in the British Museum in London. In the XVIII century. Many noble ladies spent a lot of time decorating various objects with cut out paper pictures. They even preferred to cover the whole product with varnish themselves. In England, this art was known as japanning (cutting and gluing).
In 1760 publisher Robert Sayer published a large book in London entitled “The Ladies Amusement or Whole Art of Japanning Made Easy”. This book became very popular. It had 1,500 illustrations by artists and craftsmen. It was especially in demand by idle ladies who cut out pictures from it and glued them on various surfaces.
A little later, in the 19th century, the art of cut-out and hand-painting was replaced by collage in artistic form. It was then that valentines (Valentine cards) came into use, as well as embossed and decorative paper cords that were used to decorate the surfaces of screens for covering fireplaces, boxes, lamp posts, etc. At the same time, many babysitters taught their little wards to decorate various objects with pieces of beautiful paper.
After World War II, interest in the Decoupage technique decreased. Nowadays this direction of art is experiencing the 2nd birth all over the world. Decoupage is popularized by guilds in America, Australia, Italy, England, Japan and South Africa, which were specially created for this purpose. The first such guild was founded in 1972 in the USA. This guild succeeded in reviving this wonderful technique. Today the Decoupage technique is growing, new directions and types of this art appear.
The traditional technique of decoupage uses up to 30-40 layers of varnish, which are carefully polished so that they have a beautiful shine. Now a special glue is used, after which only 3-4 layers of varnish are enough.
The Decoupage technique is divided into color and black and white. In the first type, masters glue patterns from full-color pictures, in the second – use black and white themes.
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