Color background

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    • #14321
      rincondereyes
      Participant

      Hi friends, how do you apply a color background on paper. I have tried with a spray bottle but it is not homogeneous. Do you have a trick?

      • This topic was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by 罗雁 LuoYan.
    • #14381
      Thomas
      Participant

      What kind of paper and what kind of colour?

      If you mean ink on xuan, it is almost impossible to get it homogenous because of paper warp.

      It might work with a full bath in dyed water, tea, coffee, or similar.

    • #14418
      moqiao
      Keymaster

      Perhaps a background wash might work better on double-layer or triple layer paper, or the card-mounted papers – otherwise choose pre-coloured paper as many of the card mounted and decorated papers are already coloured.
      Single-layer raw xuan paper isn’t intended for wash style techniques, the best one could do would be a full bath as Thomas suggests.

    • #14428
      罗雁 LuoYan
      Keymaster

      Professor Alfred Freddy Krupa commented:  ´My answer is: I do not apply color on background in my inks.´

      • This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by 罗雁 LuoYan.
    • #14448
      rincondereyes
      Participant

      Thanks, any text or demo video on how to do the background wash? I want to try with natural pigments such as coffee, tea or beet. regards

    • #14462
      rincondereyes
      Participant

      Full bath

    • #14469
      Thomas
      Participant

      There are a few tutorials about coffee or tea dyed paper on Youtube. They use ordinary paper and are fairly easy. But if you use xuan paper you have to handle it extremely careful. The slightest pull on wet xuan paper will result in a rip. I usually handle wet xuan paper on a sheet of acrylic glass, so that I don’t have to touch it at all. It is tricky though. Slightly better is to use wenzhou paper, which is tougher due to its longer fibers. If you want your dyed paper flat and even after dying, use a large ironing press, that fits your paper size. I have found one that accomodates 30 by 60 cm and got it cheap from ebay. Good luck.

      • This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Thomas.
    • #14477
      moqiao
      Keymaster

      There are lots of videos on Suminagashi, although that technique is not intended to create homogeneous colour.

      Regarding the strength of the paper when wet as Thomas comments, the grade of paper will make a difference:  Wenzhou and Xuan papers use different types of tree bark, however the proportion of bark fibre also varies a lot: the highest grade Xuan paper is 85% bark whereas some papers are 8% or 16% bark which means they are >80% rice straw.

    • #14505
      rincondereyes
      Participant

      <i>Thank you very much! ? </i>

    • #14534
      罗雁 LuoYan
      Keymaster

      David Reid suggested,

      I turn the paper over when its dry and apply from the back ….and leave to dry
      if I need to then work wet in wet I put another sheet of paper over the work and turn
      the great japanese woodblock artist Munakata painted the colour from the back
      i have ‘worked both sides for some time

    • #14541
      罗雁 LuoYan
      Keymaster

      Maria suggested,

      I place the painting facing the table. Spray water to relax paper let it rest for few minutes. Apply the color with a wide hake brush. Top to bottom for even color. Place to dry on top of a flat newspaper. It can be repeated as dark as you need.

    • #14548
      罗雁 LuoYan
      Keymaster

      Virginia Lloyd-Davies suggested,

      I think the mistake here is thinking that it is possible to get a homogenous background color at all! When I am creating a background color – say in a lotus painting or a landscape – I first spray the paper with water and then with a hake (wide) brush I add a light color. The color can be applied several times, which helps to give an even shade. Adding this color to the back of the paper rather than the front of the paper will give the smoothest color. Always be sure to saturate the paper with water first. Hope this is helpful.

    • #14556
      罗雁 LuoYan
      Keymaster

      Joke suggested,

      Still a spraybottle works the best. Bút: spray on the BACKside of your paper…..By the way: my teacher always told me that a ‘washing’ does not have to be quite so homogenious. She always said: the lines that you see in the washing make the painting vivid and pure…

    • #14981
      RaggedyBird
      Participant

      The peculiarity is this…
      Traditionally Chinese Paintings did NOT have a coloured background. Rather the hue of paper would allow some degree of mood swing on content painted.
      The westerner always paints in the details of what was in the background of the painting, a church, some trees, a blue sky and some clouds but the traditionalist doesn’t add these elements
      Some of the beauty of real traditional Chinese art is that it isolates the subject without a background no matter what the background.

      Otherwise the question is a complicated one.
      To colour the background depends on the type, thickness, age, resistance to water, fibre type and size of the paper used and then the colour required, its paint substance, the viscosity, the acidity of the water, the density of the mixture and on and on and on.

      In art there is no recipe that’s universal.
      You experiment as we all do.
      And even then, this week it looks one way next week another because weather changes, humidity changes, speed of drying, and so on.

      The PERFECT way? you nee an airbrush and paint solution that will work through it. This way the mist is so fine it will discolour the paper without droplets and without tide-line.

      Be confident. Anything goes. This is art. Not cake baking. 🙂

    • #15217
      riekjecares
      Participant

      I did a background with teawash (book nan rae) 5 tea bags in a cup. At the back of the paper first only with water next the teawash, both with a wide brush. I put a glass on the painting for the sun. It came out beautiful.

      • #15444
        罗雁 LuoYan
        Keymaster

        beautiful! I just remembered that Neil (our friend) told me that he likes using tea to get a special colour background for his papers. I like his birds and flower paintings.

    • #15529
      hanayama
      Participant

      Hi,

      Yes, using tea is quite lovely for colour.  I think the same applies to most natural colours created from organic materials, and I don’t believe one should limit oneself to ‘rules’.   I have done a few background washes for effects. It depends on the subject matter.  My first attempt came out quite well – because my subject was very simple – just a single character for ‘autumn’, done in a cursive style.  So I did a watercolour wash in a typical autumn colour (a warm golden) on the back of the painting using a wide soft brush – the softer the better as it won’t streak – western style brushes can work as well. There is a technique to applying a wash – slow and steady is key, particularly on very thin paper!  I mist the paper first so that the whole piece is wet, but not soaking!  The secret is that since you are using a watercolour wash, which by its very nature already quite diluted, you don’t need to overwet your paper, which will make it difficult to avoid tearing it.  Your brush is also wet prior to starting – and again, just damp. You will further dilute your colour if you use a brush that is soaked in water.  I start by carefully and lightly touching the colour down and moving the brush horizontally – and don’t switch movements – i.e., keeping going in the same direction all the way down and try not to wash over an area twice. Avoid ‘layering’ which will make some areas darker or possibly create streaks.

      PS I always do a test run first – that way if my colour is wrong, or whatever, I don’t have a bad surprise. For the record, I have torn the paper by going too fast or using too much pressure.  But it’s fun, can be really exciting and it’s a great learning experience. Good luck!

       

    • #15687
      riekjecares
      Participant

      I hope i did it right, if it works, this is a video from Nan Rae, about a misty backgound.

    • #16015
      rincondereyes
      Participant

      thank you very much

    • #16437
      罗雁 LuoYan
      Keymaster

      Master Sun Yan´s recommendation: use light Chinese painting colour to do the colour background instead of tea bags. This is because colour got from tea is not as stable as colour got from natural pigments.

       

    • #16450
      罗雁 LuoYan
      Keymaster

       

      Gongbi master Huang GuoHong replied: sometimes I need to use a lot of paints for large scale painting. However, almost all Chinese paints are in small portion. Especially the professional paints from Jiang SiXu Tang. In order to speed up the paint preparation, I sometimes also use Acrylic paint for large scale colour application.

      Nevertheless, only very few Acrylic paint colours are suitable for painting on Xuan Paper. I have tested almost all the colours and found only very few types. I suggest you test the colour before you use it to paint on Xuan Paper.

      Huang Guohong 黄国鸿 – Chinese GongBi Detail Painting

    • #16532

      <p style=”padding-left: 30px;”>Que bonitos los fondos de color.</p>
      Tomare nota, e ire practicando.

      Muchisimas gracias por tan buenas ideas!!

    • #16562
      罗雁 LuoYan
      Keymaster

      ¡Gracias! Sin embargo, usamos principalmente inglés en este foro. Aunque hay traducción automática, no siempre es precisa. También publicamos artículos en nuestro sitio web.

      https://www.inkston.com/es/historias/

      Por ejemplo, creemos que podría estar interesado en este artículo ya que acaba de comenzar a aprender este arte. En este artículo, el artista chino habla sobre conceptos básicos sobre la pintura china. También habló sobre sus técnicas especiales.

      Paisajismo chino con Wang Zirang

      Estos artículos están escritos por nosotros y están bien traducidos al español. Cada mes, vienen nuevos artículos. Espero que los disfrutes!

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