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Traditionally the portion is 10g alum for half litre water. Normally two teaspoons would be around 10g. For tablespoon, I would say 2/3 tablespoon would equal 10g. Then try 2 to 2.5 cups of water. (one teaspoon values around 5g; one cup values between 1⁄5 and 1⁄4 of a liter) 🙂 Hope this is helpful!
Recently, one of INKSTON clients kindly helped us confirmed that the Alum Powder is in fact Potassium Aluminium Sulphate. This is important because then people can find it easily and economically in their own country.We normally grind this chemical into fine powders so that it can dissolve easily in water. I found in several books that when dissolve the alum powder, you cannot use water over 64°c because water over this degree will cause chemical reactions on Potassium Aluminium Sulphate.
As for how much Potassium Aluminium Sulphate is used needs attention too because Potassium Aluminium Sulphate actually might ‘damage’ the paper. In Chinese, we call this ‘bite paper’. You can consider 10g Potassium Aluminium Sulphate for 500g water. In winter, around 10% lessPotassium Aluminium Sulphate is used.
If you need to make glue for Chinese painting, you can use this powder and animal skin/ bone to make special glue. Such glue helps to size different types of papers. This glue can also help lock and enhance colours when painting. Especially when you need to apply quite a few layers of colours on paper, every one to two layers would need you to apply a layer of diluted glue water. This helps a lot when you need to paint many layers of colours. It can keep the clours from ‘mixing’ with other colours. This technique was used for Mo Gao Cave Mural paintings and helped to preserve these precious paintings for over 1300 years. Even nowadays, the bllue azurite, malachite greens are still very bright.
The two top natural colours manufacturers in China normally have added high end animal glue in their natural colours. However, if you need, you can control the percentage of the glue used in their colours by ‘washing the colour chips/ sticks’ or by adding extra glues in the colours. It is easier for you to reduce the glue percentage for Jiang SiXu Tang’s colour chips than Old Hu Kai Wen inksticks. They both are very fine materials for Chinese painting and Tang Ka painting.
https://www.inkston.com/shops/inks/jiang-si-xu-tang-natural-mineral-colours/
One of our clients is a long-term inksticks collector and he has recently made a comparison between Cao Su Gong and Old Hu Kai Wen. It is very informative!
Dear Yan: At last here is a comparison between Cao Su Kung and Old Hu Kai Wen sets of color ink sticks.
A direct comparison is not possible as the two sets have inks of different colors or different shades of the same color. They both are made with an insoluble base glue which means there should be no trouble in the usual wet mounting process. ( One abnormality, the Cao black color is made with a soluble base which could bleed with over painting or wet mounting.)
When tested on various papers the Hu colors proved to be made with a finer ground pigment than Cao’s. The finer the pigment the smoother the colors are when diluted and this was shown best on harder papers that were not very adsorbent.
IN GENERAL, BOTH SETS ARE VERY GOOD BUT HU’S WOULD BE BETTER FOR MOST ORIENTAL PAINTING WHICH RELIES ON DILUTE WASHES OF COLOR. When ground, they produce deep, dense, vivid inks that are great for floral. I recommend this for any oriental artist who likes to work with color.
I liked Hu’s better as it contained two brown colors and not as many blue colors as Cao’s. I do like the vibrancy of the colors and the effects that I get on different papers that is very reminiscent of Chinese paintings that I have seen in the past. These ink sticks are just what I was looking for. The colors are bright and come in a very useful assortment. When dry on paper, the colors are clear and water resistant.
I would like to Thank You again for your help in getting these colors for me. I will enjoy using both Old Hu’s and Cao’s inks for some time.
Best regards,Robert O*******
Yes, there are three main tricks to correct small mark or errors in Gongbi painting.
- You can use warm water to wash carefully. This will not completely remove the stain but it creates a special foggy feeling. Therefore, this is also used as a special painting technique in Chinese painting. For instance, you can use this to paint clouds, flowers, etc.
- Another way to correct mark is to correct it with smashed garlic. Smash the garlic and use it to clean the mark slowly and carefully by hair brush. This will clean the mark completely. Once the mark is gone, use tissue to remove the garlic and absorb the water on the paper. When the paper is dry, apply a layer of alum water on the paper. When the alum water is absorbed and dry, you can paint again.
- Or, if you do not like garlic, you can also replace it with fine ashes of high quality tabaco. This will also help clean the mark completely.
You need a lot of practice to master these tricks. There are also some special chemicals in market and they can clean marks. However, we do not recommend to use them on handmade Xuan papers because the unknown chemicals might destroy the natural fibers in Xuan paper. It might not easy to notice but in long term, the destroyed fibers will make the paper ‘broken’ and also get the colour ‘run off’ the painting.
How to repair the paper:
Authentic Xuan papers are mainly made from Pteroceltis Tatarinowii tree barks, rice straw, and spring water. The Pteroceltis Tatarinowii tree fibers are very long, strong, flexible, and absorbent. Although making the paper is complicated, it is mostly just boil, steam, bake work. Therefore, keep in mind that the authentic Xuan paper is not afraid of high temperature, water, etc. Therefore, if the paper is crinkled, you can use any of the following ways to repair it quickly:
- simply leave the paper underneath a huge heavy book for a couple of days. The paper will be flattened.
- if the wrinkles are too much, please use clean tap water and spray bottle. (sometimes, for very very valuable handmade Xuan papers, people also recommend to use bottled water.) Please put the clean water in the spray bottle. Leave the large sheet of Xuan paper on clean and flat surface (floor without carpet would be good). Then use the spray bottle to spray the water evenly on the paper. This is sort of similar to mounting process. Since the authentic raw Xuan paper always shrinks a bit if it is not ´mature´yet, it is not a good idea to make the paper too wet. Therefore, please pay attention to the amount of water you spray on the paper. My personal experience would be just to make it moistened a bit. This methods applies to small scale repairmen and please do pay attention to the amount of water you use. You might need some experience on use this method though.
- iron the paper like you iron your shirt. This is a very good and easy way.
In China, it is also recommended to keep the raw Xuan paper after it is kept for a while. This process is called 退火 which literally means ‘reduce fire’. 🙂 This makes the paper more friendly to use and more flat after the painting is dry.
on the Xuan paper classification, we have put the information on each specific paper materials information. In total, the Xuan papers are divided into two main groups: Pi and Mian. Generally speaking, the Pi xuan paper refers to handmade Xuan paper with over 60% bark; while the Mian xuan paper less than 40% bark. (For our own inkston workshop, we list all the xuan paper with less than 60% bark as Mian paper. )
Pi xuan paper:
特种净皮 Te Zhong Jing Pi: 80% Pteroceltis Tatarinowii Tree Barks, 20% rice straw,
净皮 Jing Pi: 60% Pteroceltis Tatarinowii Tree Barks, 40% rice straw.
Both of these two types of Xuan papers are professional grade Xuan papers. They are professional Xuan paper for calligraphy and sumi e/ Chinese paintings.
Mian xuan paper:
棉料 Mian Liao Xuan paper refers to the type of Xuan paper which contains 30% Pteroceltis Tatarinowii tree barks and 70% rice straw, or 40% Pteroceltis Tatarinowii tree barks and 60% rice straw. Such type of paper is suitable for normal calligraphy and painting purposes.
https://www.inkston.com/materials/te-zhong-jing-pi/
https://www.inkston.com/materials/mian-liao/
https://www.inkston.com/materials/jing-pi/
The Red Star professional papers are mostly Pi xuan paper. The Te Zhong Jing Pi paper is the most expensive type. The Jing Pi paper is less expensive. 🙂 I think this is why sometimes people is confused and came to ask us why some Red Star paper is more expensive than others. 🙂
The Perfect 80 belongs to Te Jing Pi Paper. The Extra Fine 6575 is a higher grade than Jing Pi Paper and is categorized by inkston as Jing Pi paper.
The best think pi papers are from Wenzhou 温州. We do not make such paper at our workshop because our workshop is in Jing County where we can only get the finest raw materials and water for Xuan paper, instead of Pi paper. We have cooperation with best Pi paper supplier (Shu Guang) in China. On our website you can find the Class A, which is the top grade, Wen Zhou Pi paper. If you need other sizes, please contact us. We have different sizes available.
For your professional exhibitions and expensive art works for sale, I still recommend you to try high grade Red Star Xuan papers. Inkston has been working with quite a few top Chinese artists. According to our experience, they use 10 to 20 years old high grade Red Star Xuan papers for art works which are priced thousand RMB per 尺 chi. The colours, they use Old Hu Kai Wen or Jiang SiXu Tang natural colours. This set of materials (old Red Star raw xuan paper, Old Hu Kai Wen high grade natural soot ink, and Jiang SiXu Tang’s natural colours) is a very popular professional material set. The paper is very expensive. I have left one piece of Red Star paper in the sample pack for you.
For other professional purposes, you may try normal Red Star papers except the practicing Xuan paper. Or, you can also try INKSTON Perfect xuan papers which are made with the similar production standards of Red Star. The INKSTON Perfect 85 Xuan paper can match Red Star professional Xuan paper’s quality while the price is much lower because Perfect 85 is produced by
our own workshop and we can control the pricing. In our sample pack, you may find perfect 70 and 80 papers which shows a bit of the perfect 85 features. Still Perfect 85 is much better.
For your normal exhibition and art works for sale, you may try INKSTON Perfect 70 and 80, and INKSTON Extra Fine Xuan papers for paintings. For calligraphy, you can choose any INKSTON handmade papers. This grade of inkston papers are also our most popular products so far in both China and other countries. These papers are used by professionals, advanced students, art teachers mostly. The price is similar to Red Star practicing paper but the quality is so much higher than Red Star practicing papers.
Red Star 3 Star 10-20% sized practicing Xuan paper 69 * 138 cm: This is Red Star’s lowest grade handmade Xuan paper. The price is much lower than other Red Star Xuan papers and this 3 star paper is only recommended for daily practice purposes. According to our customer’s feedback, this paper is a very good practice Xuan paper but it is easy to break. I think ‘easy to break’ might be because the 3 star practicing paper uses less Pteroceltis Tatarinowii tree barks. Generally speaking, it is a very good practicing paper for both students and professional’s daily use. On the one hand, it is authentic handmade xuan paper made with authentic raw materials by Red Star. This ensures that the paper still shows the users how the raw xuan paper reacts; on the other hand, as a handmade Red Star paper, this makes it affordable for people to use authentic Xuan paper to practice frequently without worrying about budget. 🙂
I also suppose that this paper is made to be 10 to 20% sized might be because that the paper is more designed for students. Because raw xuan paper is difficult for starters to control while the slightly sized papers (*not sized enough to be half-sized paper) could keep the features of xuan paper while make it easier for people to control. This is just what I think. It is not confirmed by Red Star lab. Maybe as an experienced art teacher, you would have better explanation on this. 🙂
No, we are not original Red Star making company. We are just distributor of Red Star and prices of Red Star papers are the same as Red Star special stores in China. Red Star making company is called China Xuan Paper Group and it is the largest professional Xuan Paper factory in China. Red Star papers are supplied at special stores in China too.
Official Website of China Xuan Paper Group: http://www.hongxingxuanpaper.com.cn/
Yes, we welcome teachers to make kit themselves because we understood perfectly different teacher would have different necessities. Certainly, there is discount for you. Could you tell me how many kits you plan to order with us? The discount is up to the quantity of the products.
Try samples first would be a good idea. As the paper manufacturer, we are very sure that the Perfect 80 is very good! If possible, I would recommend you to use this perfect 80 paper because the price is much lower than Perfect 85 while the paper quality is high. The best single layer Xuan paper series at inkston is perfect series which are produced with the same Red Star production standards by very experienced Xuan paper masters.The highest grade paper we have is Perfect 85 but the price is also high. The Perfect 80 would be a great paper to paint if your students would be ok with the price.
The grades are: perfect 80 is better than perfect 70, and perfect 70 is better than Extra Fine Flower/ bird. For flowers painting, I would suggest you try Perfect 85, Perfect 80, Perfect 70, and Extra Fine Flower/ Bird xuan papers. The Perfect series papers are supplied mostly to professionals for our China market. And we also noticed that some artists in USA are fond of Perfect 70 and Perfect 80. Since we produce all these papers ourselves, the prices are very competitive in market too.
(Perfect 85 means the paper contains over 85% 2 years old Pteroceltis Tatarinowii tree barks; Perfect 80, 80% 2 years old Pteroceltis Tatarinowii tree barks; Perfect 70, 70% 2 years old Pteroceltis Tatarinowii tree barks. The higher percentage the 2 years old Pteroceltis Tatarinowii tree barks contains, the better the paper is.)
Compared to plastic, I prefer varnished wood.
Two areas are needed for mounting. One is a mounting table (wood is preferred), and the other is mounting wall (traditionally wood, but now metal wall is getting popular).
Mounting table: traditionally, it is recommended to use dark colour painted wood table of around 80cm height. In the beginning of our article there is one mounting video clip done by British Museum. The table used in this video clip is a perfect example.
Table:
mounting table
Table height is up to the height of the person who is going to do the mounting work. In China the recommended table height is 80cm. In Europe and North America, the table may be higher.
Table surface should be flat. The size of the table is up to the size of the painting which you plan to mount. However, normally the bigger the table is the better.
Table Colour should be dark. In order to help detect the details, it is very important to make the table painted in dark colour so that it can create big colour contrast when mounting painting which is done on white paper. The popular colour for mounting table in China is dark red.
For the mounting, you need to prepare a ruler and a cutting mat with scales. The cutting mat can help protect the wood table surface and help locate the mounting papers better.
Mounting wall: The purpose of preparing a flat mounting wall is to hang painting. Therefore, as long as it is flat it is good. You can hang a piece of flat wood on flat wall in your house. Or, you can reuse a wooden door. These days, it is very popular for people to use large magnetic board on wall because we can fix the paintings easily without using glue.
