Tag: washi

The Four Treasures: Paper, i

Throughout the world, since ancient times, record keeping and writing have been important for whatever reasons.  Finding a surface for the writing was essential, and that surface needed to be smooth and permanent.  In the Middle East, clay tablets were used to preserve records.  Egyptians developed papyrus.  The West and the East developed similar paper-making processes.  In both methods, various types of fibers, or pulp, were suspended in water and possibly other chemicals or ingredients.  The pulp, suspended in water, is then placed onto a screen.  The screen is shaken, the pulp spreads across the screen, the screen is lifted, and the water drains out.  The pulp is left behind, and a piece of paper is created.

Traditionally-made Asian papers differ from western papers, even though the manufacturing process is similar.  The difference is the types of plants used to create the paper.  In the west, cotton paper was the most common until the invention of large-scale wood pulp paper in the 1800s.  Handmade paper in the west is still usually based on cotton lint, although other materials can be added to it.  In Japan, the handmade paper tradition continues, although costs rise as materials and paper makers become more scarce.

The following video shows traditional Japanese paper – washi – being made after all the labor-intensive prep work has been done.

Line & Color, vii

The Final Pictures

The final decision was to attempt to darken the middle flower and create more light / dark contrast. Don’t think it works. The other choice was to move from more warm at the base of the painting to cooler on top. Washes of yellows and yellowy-pinks went in, from bottom to top. Purple-blues were overlaid the very top flower.

To a degree, I think this warm-to-cool saves the painting, but the lost contrast in the middle flower weakens it as a whole. The contrasts between the red and green of the leaves helps, but doesn’t save it. The B&W below shows this quite clearly.

Line & Color, vi

PINKS – Too Much?

Second layering of pinks added, cool and warm, and more of the original underlying light pink. The photo below shows where the painting is currently – and I am not happy at all! The big middle flower disappears into the background of leaves – it has lost its sparkle. The reason is pretty simple: the flower now is the same value as the leaves. Rats!

I was looking at this picture last night, and it took me awhile to realize what had happened. Here is another way to test the values (shades of grey) in a picture – take a digital photograph in black and white, or turn your color image into a B&W image in a software program. Problem is immediately apparent, as you can see below.

Before Second Layer of Pink

After Second Layer of Pink

The lesson here is twofold. First, layering more of one color, or other colors, can create this problem. Second is to think ahead from now on. Experiment with colors, take a picture, look. Better yet, analyze the picture and then see if my camera bears out my theory!

In painting, value is the hardest for me to “get.” B&W photos help me see this better. Last night, I put the picture on the door to look at it. It seemed dull and uninteresting. I looked, and looked, and then looking at my earlier photos, I realized what had happened.

The next question is – to darken up the central flower, or to lighten it with white? Darken the leaves? Hmmmm.

Line & Color, iv

COLD GREEN

Once the warm green dried – and more than one layer of it in some areas – it was time to add the cool green. This green is a viridian or phthalo green, so there is a bluish tint to it. The next picture shows the pale layers before they begin to build up. Warm and cool greens begin to meet.

Subsequent layers – two or three more -begin to show the intensity of the colors, as well as areas where warm and cool work together to show the underside of a leaf, such as on the far right side. Mottling is done to see how warm and cool will work together underneath yet another layer of green. Below you will see a leaf with a lighter, warmer green center surrounded by cooler green.

Line & Color, iii

WARM GREENS

The paper for this project is a handmade kozo paper. It is a thin, lightweight paper. One purpose of this painting adventure is to test how the paper handles repeated thin washes of color – bleeding? wearing? weakening of the fibers? So far, it is holding up beautifully, and does not seem to be buckling or pilling with the layers of color. The natural color of the paper is a very pale warm beige.

The key to layering colors is not to put them on too wet – that is, making sure the brush is damp but not wet. Then, pick up some of the color, blot the brush a little, and then onto the paper. I start toward the central areas, just in case the brush is wetter than I think it is, and if there is some bleeding, it won’t leak out into areas I want white or another color. The brush I am using is a very small brush, and the bristles are cat hair! It comes to a very fine, delicate point, even when wet, with a nice resiliance to it, even loaded with water and color.

The following picture illustrates the beginning of layering of a warm green over the yellows. This warm yellow was applied over both cool and warm yellows, to see the effects of the underlying yellow on the now overlying green. Some areas of the leaves were not evenly covered so that when the cooler green is applied, some variation of warm and cool will hopefully appear.

Follows is a detail of one of the leaves, so you can see the variations within a leaf.