I started out using a regular Xuan, actually an excellent quality Xuan. Right away I found myself ill at ease.
One of my Achilles heels is the fact that I tend to doodle. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, but I tend to go over my my brushstrokes over and over again, must be my OCD. I was hoping by honing my Jimo skill I will learn to be more decisive and discrete with my doodling, but the unsized Xuan caused a lot of bleeding. It is true that I can still see distinct tracks if I hold up the Xuan against the light, but when viewed under ambient illumination, the painting looked muddled, or dirty as we say. I stopped before finishing the painting.
I dug out my semi-sized Xuan stock and tried to paint again. The semi-sized Xuan is less absorbent. The ink floats on top of the paper for a while before getting absorbed into the fibers. Once the ink is dried to touch, I can pile on more ink/color and I can push the original track somewhat, while keeping the original brushstroke more or less intact.
Here is a side by side comparison of the 2 versions. The one on the left is semi-sized. The brush marks are better delineated.
I like the semi-sized Xuan much better for this particular exercise, and I took the painting to completion.
Sepia color achieved by using left over from my cup of coffee !!
