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I must admit I used Japanese mulberry paper (quite thin) for the whole thing from start to finish…maybe that’s why the paste went through.
charlesrtsua,
After I do what you just said, am I not supposed to put the scroll face down on the table, moist or completely soak with water, remove excess humidity, paste the whole thing (including the pockets), apply final backing, transfer to drying board, face down?
The only time I completed a scroll, at this stage the pockets got sticked to the scroll, underneath the final backing. I had to paste new ones over the final backing to complete the scroll.
Happy new year, everyone!
Hi, charlesrtsua!
Could you share some tips about how you paste the “pockets” for the upper and lower rods?
I mean, you are supposed to do it before the final backing. Then the whole thing gets paste, and then the final backing on top, before going to the drying board face down (this time). But you must do something to prevent the pockets from completely sticking to the painting…what do you do? use a little patch of melinex or some other anti-adherent material?
Thanks!
Hi, DenisePayne1!
From your question I get the feeling you are talking about a trick intermediate and advanced painters use: triple loading of the brush, first with water, then ink, then ink again to obtain a certain gradation in certain kinds of stokes.
My advice is don’t go so much into tricks especially if you are an absolute beginner. Try to master basic techniques of loading ink and doing line work. Complete a few works in line only, so you will understand your brush more and start to feel and anticipate its reactions.
Basic techniques of brush loading would be these:
-Mix ink, as concentrated as possible. Use a white plastic pallette with compartments in which to mix less concentrated shades.
-Use wolf hair or badger hair or rabbit hair brushes that make a fine tip and keep more or less stiff during work.
-Moisten the brush thorughly at the beginning.
-Keep a large supply of paper towels close, and always one near your pallette and water cup.
-After you load or moist your brush with water, unload it by pressing against the edge of your water pot, and then wipe the brush against your paper towel to further unload it and form the tip.
-After you load the brush with desired shade of ink, again wipe against the towel to unload and make fine tip. Also, make test lines on the towel/tissue before proceeding on your work.
-The abovementioned move of unloading upon a towel/tissue is essential (unexpected as it may be) because one rarely needs the maximum load, and if you do overload the ink will drip or be over absorbed by the paper.
-Consider this: the longer the line you want to do in one stroke, the more ink you need to load, the quicker your move must be. The shorter the line, the less ink you need in the brush so the more you must unload before painting, the less quick your move can be. This is especially true with raw xuan or mulberry paper.
As a nice and rewarding exercise: make a pencil sketch of a desired subject. Place it under your xuan paper, fix in place with a little bit of sticky tape. The sketch should be quite visible, still. Set out to complete the subject in lines only. Use darker, thicker lines for close objects, thinner more transparent lines for backround objects in your composition.
Hope this helps.
You’re welcome!
You may find alum as a solid bar or crayon used for stopping bleeding during shaving. Some people use it to replace deodorant.
And about the glue solution, when it gets cold it becomes gel-like. You can keep it in the fridge and reheat it when you need it again. You can use the same solution as a binder to work with dry pigments for artists Chinese or western.
You can prevent colour running like this:
Make a gelatin and alum solution, 1% gelatin and 1% alum. You can use Dr. Oetker kooking gelatin or rabbit skin glue (artist grade). You can find alum in the drug stores. Check out Henry Li’s videos on Youtube “how to make alum/glue water for gong bi painting. So your solution will be 1g gelatin, 1g alum, 98g water. Cook it a little while in a double boiler (bain marie) until hot and clear. To be extra sure you can even use 2g gelatin, 1g alum, 97g water.
Apply this solution with a soft brush over the colours of your painting, with pacience, element by element. You can also apply on the back side of the painting (if it’s xuan paper).
Once it’s dry, the colours won’t run anymore durring mounting, even if they are western watercolours.
Hello!
I noticed it is impossible to re-edit a post once you posted it.
So, it would be nice to have an “edit” button somewhere around the post or in the account menu at “my replies”.
Keep up the good work!
Hello!
riekjecares, chinese mounting is a dificult process, it takes years to master. However, with a bit of concentration you can reach good results faster than that. Be sure to read and watch everything available on line about the subject and make test mountings with less important pieces.
About the tapes, they are not mandatory (not among my favorites either). You can read about them here: http://funalliance.com/ink/painting/mounting.htm
<p style=”text-align: left;”>It dosen’t seem to be too dry, there’s no need to stir or add oil. Beware of adding oil, it may migrate in the paper after you stamp. The paste should be gel-like, just like heavy body artist oil paint. Gently touch it with the stamp, carefull not to load paste inside the carvings. It helps to have a small piece of linoleum to pre stamp on and rub the seal gently against, so as to make the load more uniform. Some experience with linocut printing may help you stamp better! ☺</p>
