Decoupage

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Decoupage or découpage (/ˌdeɪkuːˈpɑːʒ/;^[1] French: [dekupaʒ]) is the art of decorating an object by gluing colored paper cutouts onto it in combination with special paint effects, gold leaf, and other decorative elements. Commonly, an object like a small box or an item of furniture is covered by cutouts from magazines or from purpose-manufactured papers. Each layer is sealed with varnishes (often multiple coats) until the "stuck on" appearance disappears and the result looks like painting or inlay work. The traditional technique used 30 to 40 layers of varnish which were then sanded to a polished finish.^[2]

Three dimensional decoupage (sometimes also referred to simply as decoupage) is the art of creating a three-dimensional (3D) image by cutting out elements of varying sizes from a series of identical images and layering them on top of each other, usually with adhesive foam spacers between each layer to give the image more depth. Pyramid decoupage (also called pyramage) is a process similar to 3D decoupage. In pyramid decoupage, a series of identical images are cut into progressively smaller, identical shapes which are layered and fixed with adhesive foam spacers to create a 3D "pyramid" effect.

A person who does decoupage is known as a decoupeur, or "cutter".

Origins

The word decoupage comes from

Artisans in

• Mary Delany achieved fame at the court of George III and Charlotte during the 18th-century craze for decoupage. At the age of 71 in 1771, Delany began to create cut-out paper artworks of exceptionally-detailed and botanically-accurate depictions of plants, produced using tissue paper and hand-colouration. Delany created 1,700 decoupage pieces, which she called her "Paper Mosaiks", between the ages of 71 and 88, when her eyesight failed. Her work can be seen in the Enlightenment Gallery at the British Museum of Art.
• Jay (Terry) Jones, a notable decoupeur from Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, holds multiple Guinness World Records for his extensive decoupage collection.
• Richard Basile, a well known New York art collector and entrepreneur, achieved notoriety as a decoupeur when his intricate floral decorative work was displayed at the Foire internationale d'art contemporain festival in Paris in 2014. Basile had developed his collective works over more than a decade while working in the basement study of his parents' New England home.^{[citation needed]}

• Liz Barker, highly regarded decoupeur known for her distinctive visual style and use of texture. Her work came to prominence during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic with her use of swabs and PPE.

See also

• Japanning

References

Further reading

• Manning, Hiram (1980). Manning on Decoupage. Dover Publications.
  ISBN 0-486-24028-2
  .
• Rice, Durwin (2008). New Decoupage. Potter Craft.
  ISBN 978-0-307-39611-2
  .

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Découpage.

• History of Découpage