Folk artist adds color to paper-cut tradition

Li Baofeng, a 54-year-old folk artist, recently attended a reality show where her innovative approach to paper-cuttings, which look as colorful as oil paintings, impressed the audience.

"Traditional paper-cuts are often made with red paper, which seemed to be a little boring. So I wanted to make works in multiple colors which may have some 3-D effects, making them vivid like paintings," says Li.

As a result, she developed a technique to cut each respective color of paper as a layer, and then paste the layers together to form the image. Each of her works is made of dozens of layers, and each layer is made in only one cut without stopping.

"Scissors are still scissors.Techniques are improved based on traditional techniques, and I pay special attention to the cultural connotations behind my works, showing a lot about Chinese literature, folk life and folk stories," says Li.