"Painting is an island whose shores I have skirted." --Chardin
Friday, May 16, 2008
A still life study done on lightweight drawing paper; I couldn't resist adding some color, but it was ultimately disappointing as the paints don't behave as nicely as they do on watercolor paper--they don't run and mingle so freely.
I think it's great to experiment with different papers. In my sumi-e, while I'm using a water born media, I am constantly using much thinner paper than a watercolorist uses. I've experimented with many and finally found a shuan unsized that I prefer. The difficulty is when you are done painting, you need to mount these papers on thicker paper to remove the wrinkling and really pop the 'color' - in my case the shades of gray. Frankly, learning mounting techniques requires as much detail as learning to paint. I think that may be one of the reasons watercolorists avoid some wonderful thin 'rice paper'. That's in quotes because these papers aren't made from rice. Sorry for the long winded response, but I've wondered what would happen if great colorists looked at some of these papers and learned to mount. The Japanese and Chinese have a very long history of painting a very limited number of subjects.
It's a nice composition, Laura, reminds me a little of Cezanne. I've never been able to paint on drawing paper, and I haven't been successful with rice paper either (the once or twice I tried it)which is frustrating because such beautiful work is done on it. I know nothing about mounting techniques either (Bill, you should write a tutorial one day :)). It's still nice to experiment with different surfaces, though.
Hi Bill. I like to try different papers, always in the hopes I'll discover something wonderful. I have a page, a sampler, on very thin rice paper of different brushstrokes to show foliage. I've had it for years but have been afraid to try to mount it oir to ask anyone else to do it. I learned a technique to mount rice paper on another piece of thicker rice paper using rice paste, but I'm no expert and am afraid I'll end up with wrinkles or tears!
Hi Mineke. Probably whenever I do a still life, somewhere in my mind I'm thinking "Cezanne"! I like the thinness of some papers for drawing on, and this was an older piece of paper too; it seems a bit aged!
5 comments:
I think it's great to experiment with different papers. In my sumi-e, while I'm using a water born media, I am constantly using much thinner paper than a watercolorist uses. I've experimented with many and finally found a shuan unsized that I prefer. The difficulty is when you are done painting, you need to mount these papers on thicker paper to remove the wrinkling and really pop the 'color' - in my case the shades of gray. Frankly, learning mounting techniques requires as much detail as learning to paint. I think that may be one of the reasons watercolorists avoid some wonderful thin 'rice paper'. That's in quotes because these papers aren't made from rice. Sorry for the long winded response, but I've wondered what would happen if great colorists looked at some of these papers and learned to mount. The Japanese and Chinese have a very long history of painting a very limited number of subjects.
It's a nice composition, Laura, reminds me a little of Cezanne. I've never been able to paint on drawing paper, and I haven't been successful with rice paper either (the once or twice I tried it)which is frustrating because such beautiful work is done on it. I know nothing about mounting techniques either (Bill, you should write a tutorial one day :)). It's still nice to experiment with different surfaces, though.
Hi Bill. I like to try different papers, always in the hopes I'll discover something wonderful. I have a page, a sampler, on very thin rice paper of different brushstrokes to show foliage. I've had it for years but have been afraid to try to mount it oir to ask anyone else to do it. I learned a technique to mount rice paper on another piece of thicker rice paper using rice paste, but I'm no expert and am afraid I'll end up with wrinkles or tears!
Hi Mineke. Probably whenever I do a still life, somewhere in my mind I'm thinking "Cezanne"! I like the thinness of some papers for drawing on, and this was an older piece of paper too; it seems a bit aged!
Pleased to meet you Larua. You have a lovely lovely line quality and I very much like to see your drawings with some color. Adds interest.
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