How can I avoid ink ´running off the painting´when I mount my painting?

[罗雁 LuoYan]

How can I avoid ink ´running off the painting´when I mount paintings?

[罗雁 LuoYan]

The tip for keep the ink from running does not require special materials. For example, the master suggest to put the painting in a plastic bag and steam the bag. Such tip does not require special materials. 🙂 The difficult part is to read these things in Chinese. Unfortunately, I do not see much information on these special techniques available in any other language but Chinese. We will try to publish articles to explain these tips as often as possible.

[罗雁 LuoYan]

‘running ink’ can happen quite often even if sometimes you use high quality inkstick and paper. There are many reasons to explain this. Most commonly reason is bad Xuan paper. However, bad control of water can also cause this problem. Artists in China use Su Ink to avoid ‘running ink’ problem. Su Ink can avoid this problem is because it is very thick. The special effect that Su Ink can realize is ‘lock ink on paper while only let extra water spread away’.

 

[charlesrtsua]

There are several ways to avoid ruining ink:

1. Avoid using bottled or poor ink which tends not to bind well with paper. If that can’t be helped then avoid using the wet backing method and use the pile-on method where the backing sheet is pasted rather than the work to avoid the work getting soaked.

2. Avoid backing immediately after a work has been finished. Finished works need time to rest so the pigments bind and settle on the paper well.

3. Prepare the work before hand with an application of alum-glue solution to fix the pigments. This is a must for works on sized paper and heavy pigment work in general.

4. Don’t use a paste that is too wet. When using the pile-on backing method, the pasted backing sheet should also be placed on some newspaper so the excess moisture is soaked up and the backing sheet is drier and won’t soak the work.

[罗雁 LuoYan]

Thank you dear charlestsua for your wonderful post! 🙂

Here is a question from a comment on Inkston Facebook discussion group *Chinese fine art and craft stories:

Chew Lung Lee: How about try to spray a weak solution of vinegar mixed with water onto the inked writing n dried first before starting the whole process.

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