Blog

Other than paper, there are a few textile fabrics that are rather essential in the oriental art world. Do you know of them? Today let us take a look at a few of the most interesting and important ones!

When thinking about the oriental world, one of the symbols that pops into everybody’s head is silk. Silk as an important item for trade, and has played a key role in the overall prosperity of the eastern world. Since the Neolithic period the silk worm raising and textile manufacturing has already taken shape in the east, where numerous archeological discoveries provide solid proof. We can say with some certainty that the very first silk textiles most likely were produced for rituals, where people may have injected great hope in this fabric that is lighter than air to bring them longevity and then help them be delivered to the great ever after.

During the Spring and Autumn and the Warring State periods the silk fabrics became a norm in regular clothing, well, clothing of the powerful – for a long time the wealthy merchants could not wear silk clothing due to their low social status. We have many names referring to the textile fabricated from silk, Ling, Luo, Chou, Duan, each has its unique weaving style, and each more fabulous than the next. Silk became a currency to a large extent over the course of history, and a trading path was even named after it, the Silk Road, which empowered countless nations along its way.

Silk in record was also used in artworks much earlier than paper. The painting below is potentially the earliest painting created on silk that still exists today. Raw silk can be made into Bo or Juan, types of fabrics often used in the painting practice. Juan is the more popular and better developed style for art creation.

When we talk about the silk painting, Juan is the type of silk fabric that we refer to. Juan is a plainly woven silk fabric, and the raw silk acts similarly to the raw rice papers, whereas the ripe silk is also available for the more meticulous Gongbi painting style, just as the rice papers. In order to make the silk ripe, a series of complicated procedures are required, captured in the Tang Dynasty painting below. We can almost be certain that up until early Tang Dynasty all ancient paintings were made on Juan instead of paper. However, the texture of Juan may vary depending on the preference of the artists, so some artworks may appear to be painted on rougher surfaces than others.

Another silk fabric commonly used in the oriental art is called Ling, which is often used for the mounting of artworks. We said that Juan was made to reflect the most plain woven fabric style, but it is not the case of Ling. Ling is filled with gorgeous patterns, including clouds, flowers, birds, etc. As the techniques progressed, more and more patterns appeared. These silk materials would be the kind that you most likely have seen as the borders of mounted artworks.

Nowadays however, Ling has experienced some change, where many types are produced with a layer of glue that reacts with heat. So the delicate mounting process became a ironing practice. I do enjoy the time saved, but I always felt that there is something missing about the rich mounting culture. So in the coming months I will try and make a video to show you how to further mount your artworks with a layer of the gorgeous silk around it the traditional and homemade way. So stay tuned!

Our Rice Paper / Silk Collection

Buy Artworks | Learn Brush Painting | Learn Chinese Calligraphy

In the oriental art world we use the Xuan rice paper, and in the previous post we discussed how to size them in order to use them most efficiently. Today let us discuss another aspect of it, how to make rice paper ripe. Now we all know that there are raw, ripe and half ripe rice papers, why do we need to make the paper ripe anyway?

The reasons are multifold.

The most important reason would be to “fix” the defects of already ripe papers or silk. During the Gongbi painting practice, there are often times (it happened more when I was young) that the ripe rice paper or ripe silk contains spots that are actually raw or not ripe enough. In this case when we paint over such spots it becomes obvious that the color within such spots are darker, and that the color sinks through to the back of the paper. If you have seen many Gongbi paintings made several decades ago, it is very common to find such spots in the shape of finger prints that appear more often at the edges of the papers, and sometimes they would even be right in the middle of a person’s face that you consider key to the image, destroying the ambience of the painting immediately. Therefore it becomes crucial to fix the papers that we use. Ripe papers nowadays rarely have such issues anyway, but if you have not kept the papers correctly, overtime the papers may still exhibit such issues.

Other times the artists may want to create their own ripe papers or silk after first making use of the qualities of raw papers or silk. Such creations normally would involve an elaborate background. The artists would then make the paper or silk ripe to continue with his or her creations in the realm of the meticulous Gongbi style.

It also happens that during the Gongbi art creation, certain colors require to be secured on the papers, so that during the mounting process such colors would remain intact. These colors usually involve the “rock-based” kinds, which depending on the painting style, may need to be accumulated on the surface of the paper or silk. In this case we also need to engage the same method as in making the paper ripe.

So how to make the paper or silk ripe?

We need a solution made from gelatin and potassium alum. The solution created are used for all the above stated issues, as well as in fixing the ancient paintings. However, the preparation of such procedure can be rather confusing, and perhaps I will be able to shoot a video about this in the future, but right now let me share the information with you in word.

When preparing the gelatin, one can first soak it in cold water to remove the dust, if any, and then soak in warm (up to 80 °C) but not boiling water to fully dissolve it. The alum requires cold water to soak, and make sure to soak and dissolve it a day in advance. Boiling water may interfere with the properties of them, and is advised against.

Depending on the season and personal preferences, the proportion between the gelatin (G) and the alum (A) changes:

• Summer: G:A=6:4
• Winter: G:A=8:2
• Other: G:A=7:3

According to the most popular practice, use the same amount of water to dissolve each of the ingredient before combining them. The final water amount should be about 15 times the weight of gelain and alum combined, in our case, if you use G=7g, A=3g, then the water should be 150g. It is better to use more water to make more diluted solution, and if necessary, apply it a few times. The more concentrated solution would damage the properties of the paper.

If your solution contains too much gelatin, then when painting over it you will find the brush strokes too smooth and that the colors would no longer stay; The opposite case indicates a paper surface that resists the brush strokes too much, and the papers would also become very vulnerable, crispy to be exact. Sometimes this solution also gives the surface a yellow tint, which could cover the bright colors below. So my advise is to use this solution only when necessary!

Our Rice Paper Collection

Buy Artworks | Learn Brush Painting | Learn Chinese Calligraphy

In the oriental art world the most popular canvas would be xuan rice paper. When you purchase the most regular Xuan rice papers you will find them rather large – most commonly 3 feet, 4 feet or 6 feet! They would also come in a pack of 100 sheets, which is called a “knife”. If you have have had trouble or wondered about how to size these papers, this post will provide you with some guidance.

The 3 feet paper size is 50cm x 100cm; the 4 feet rice paper is 69cm x 138cm; the 6 feet is 97cm x 180cm. The most commonly used is the 4 feet, but for some very large productions the 6 feet can also be very useful. The oriental paintings are generally much larger in scale than the western ones, because we need lots of blank spaces in the painting besides the images that we actually paint. The same scale and paper sizes apply equally to calligraphy – according to the number of characters we can easily manage the character size on a standard paper. So when faced with a large sheet of paper that is 69cm x 138cm, is there a good way to cut them so that there is minimum waste? The answer is yes. Let us take the 4 feet paper to explain.

A very common way of sizing the paper is to split the 4 feet into 2. This creates about 34cm x 138cm long sheets, which is very often seen in art creations, and if you have wondered about why there are so many artworks in this dimension, the answer is that this is one of the mot efficient ways of using the rice paper. The image above shows 12 paintings of this scale that forms a complete artwork.

If the paper is split into three from the long side, we will have 46cm x 69cm sizes, another useful size. This size involves a rather comfortable width-length ratio, and is used often by authorities when hosting art competitions. With this paper size, both horizontal and vertical styles work nicely. For even smaller sizes, another cut can be made to form the 46cm x 34cm style.

When resizing from the 34cm x 138cm papers, we can get 34cm x 69cm and 34cm x 34cm styles. They serve the smaller long and thin style or square style very well, giving us more options to work with.

These paper sizing styles are also the reason why many smaller sized papers are sold the way they are, and often also by 100 sheets. Below is a nice chart for you which can provide you with direct visual guide in paper sizing. Hope this post will help you figure out a nicer way in using rice paper!

Our Rice Paper Collection

Buy Artworks | Learn Brush Painting | Learn Chinese Calligraphy