To the uninitiated, Xuan paper is just a regular piece of white paper to be painted or written on. The more astute observer would however notice a smooth side and a rough side.
Xuan paper is made from the pulp of plant fibers scooped up on a sieve and the sheets are deposited flat on heated rollers or steel walls to dry. The side of the paper that faces the roller or wall is smooth, the other side is more fibrous, and therefore rougher.
Technically the smooth side is the "top" side but many artists prefer the rough side to paint on. It has more "feel". I can attest to that. I also like the texture the bottom side provides.
Printing paper on the other hand are less tolerant if the "wrong" side is used. I have wasted so much inkjet color by loading my print paper the wrong way. It is especially easy to do if I was printing on matte photopaper. The two sides are almost indistinguishable, either by feel or by color. Only the finished print that comes out from my printer would tell if I fed the paper correctly or not. Obviously there is no such problem with gloss or semi-gloss paper.
There is a type of Xuan paper that I like to use and for lack of a proper translation, I'll call it cicada skin paper, or cicada wing paper. This Xuan paper is very light and transparent and has a slight sheen to it, just like the wings of a cicada. The paper is considered sized or semi-sized, in that it allows color to float on it a little bit without too much bleeding. It also is able to withstand repeated rubbing without having the top layer of fibers linting up. Its transparency augments the transparent watercolor and bestows a very delicate feel to the painting. It is a favorite with artists who do the Gongbi (elaborate) style of Chinese painting.
I have a couple pieces of dance movement gestures done on such a paper. I try to use calligraphic brushstrokes to describe the limbs and gestures. I feel that this approach gives the dance movements more flow and energy. There is a je ne sais quoi quality of "writing" versus simply filling in the space with ink or color.
With me the dilemma is not whether I should paint on the paper face up or face down. As far as I am concerned there is no perceptible difference either way. My problem is which side of the paper should I be presenting as the top side of my painting.
The cicada paper's thinness and transparency allows the painted image to be visible from both sides of the paper, as if one is looking through a projection slide, or one of those double-faced silk embroidery from Suzhou. The bottom side of the image can sometimes be a little less saturated or slightly well defined around the edges, but it is this quality that captivates me.
The picture above actually shows the bottom side of the cicada paper with painted image on it.
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