Painting my Year of the Rat

I started processing my thoughts about this painting around September in 2019.

Year of Rat starts the new cycle for the Chinese Zodiac.  The cycle repeats every 12 years.  By knowing the Chinese zodiac sign and the current age of a person, one can easily deduce the age of others when their zodiac signs are known.  For example if a person of the Rat sign is 48 years old this year, then the possibilities for another Rat person would be: the same age, or multiples of 12 years younger or multiples of 12 years older.  So if another Rat looks older than 48, then he or she could be 60, or 72 etc.  Another example would be, the Pig is the animal immediately preceding the Rat (taking up the last place of the 12 animal court) thus one year older than the Rat.  So a Pig person who is about the same age as the afore mentioned Rat would be 49 this year, and an older Pig would be 61, or 73, or 85 etc.

The order of the Chinese Zodiac is as follows: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Ram, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig.  The story of this order is sort of interesting.  There are many versions and the one I am told is that Buddha called for an assembly of all the animals and 12 of those responded.  It was suppose to be a race of sorts, and the rat got a ride on the back of the Ox and leaped to the checkered flag at the last moment, securing the First Place finish.

It is common practice for traditional Chinese to post pieces of 揮春 (Fai Chun or Hui Chun)  at entrances to invoke, ( or pray for ) fortune and luck.  These are typically red banners or squares with writing of auspice on them.

I wanted to paint a red square with the writing of 福 (bliss) on it; I shall try to incorporate my Rat into this theme.

I thought of my Rat poking its head through a hole of this red square

Or my Rat holding the red square in its mouth

but I don't like its tail hanging out.  Somehow I think the tail takes away from the aesthetics of the setup and might creep people out.  I could always dispense with the tail though.


How about my Rat appears to climb over the red square to do some investigation

I think I like this composition the best.  I shall proceed with this blue print in mind.

When I paint I often seek out everyday objects to facilitate my rendering of my subjects.  I've seen self-taught painting guides instructing us to break down the human body into oblong circles for example.  The head, the torso and the abdomen each assuming the shape of a circle or an oblong shape and that helps the person to construct the body.  It is easier to draw circles and then add features versus starting out with intricate features and try to build the whole.

For my painting I envisioned a Concord pear

The pear will form the body of my rat, the stalk the limb

Then I would superimpose a triangle onto the pear;  the triangle being the head

Voila, I have my basic design

I have used my heavily fibered Xuan  (what I called the fancy butt-wiper paper ) before and I really liked the organic feel and the textured appearance the paper.  I shall thus use that again.

I plotted the position of the red square and my Rat, and I lightly sketched out my critter with pencil.

Of course the Chinese Brush purist would scoff at my practice of sketching.  To them I ask "Why Not".  I am the painter and I do whatever I deem necessary for me to convey my painting.  This is how I float my boat.

At this point, I was keenly aware of my desire that my Rat should be something more than a two dimensional figure.  My Rat should assume a posture that creates movement and tells a story.  I must get the arched body and the attitude of the head correct to convey the narrative that my inquisitive Rat climbed onto this red piece of paper to investigate and found Bliss.

My Rat needs to be inquisitive and salient.

I got the idea of my Rat poking its head through the red paper from watching high school football players bursting onto the field through a huge paper screen.  That impressed me as being energetic and possessing pomp. Such an auspicious theme is critical for the celebration of the arrival of a New Year. However one of the reason that I did not choose that arrangement is my fear of violating the auspicious symbolism.

I am reminded of a snafu a few years back causing a lot of ill will between the local Chinese community and the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC).  The RACC had commissioned a sculpture to be installed in our Chinatown and the non-Chinese artist chose the proverbial Chinese Dragon theme;  the dragon being a noble creature in Chinese culture and not the serpentine creature that St. George slayed.  Chasing The Dragon was the resulting artwork. The metal art piece was installed on two raised platforms occupying the opposite corners of a street in the middle of Chinatown.  The head of the dragon is on one platform and the tail is on the other; the body of the dragon was left to one's imagination.  To support the head and tail of the dragon the artist constructed a tripod with a ring in the center which worked as harness.  The artist also placed an abacus, a wok cleaning brush and a up turned wok as ornaments facing the downward pointing dragon head; he thought these articles represented the Chinese culture.

The Dragon, aside from being a mythological celestial animal in the Chinese zodiac, is also a symbol for the Emperor.  Only the Emperor may don a robe with a Dragon motif.   Thus the Dragon always assumes a fierce posture, with its head raised and claws flexed.  Now this poor misguided artist was construed as to put a dragon (i.e. an Emporer) in shackles ( the metal ring at the center of the tripod used to anchor the dragon head) and committed a crime worthy of capital punishment if the Emperor was still around.  Granted the Emporer, or any Emporer, is no longer a fact, yet the reverence is still valid.

Round mirrors found on buildings, doors, or sewn onto head dresses were used to stop and reflect back bad and evil energy in the Chinese culture.  These mirrors could be flat, concave or convex.  The notion was to distort and reflect bad feng shui.  They are typically placed facing sources of bad energy, such as a street intersection or anything that is pointed or dirty, as in a pitch fork implement , a lightning rod or a broom .

People used to sun dry their laundry on poles of bamboo hoisted outside their apartments.  People who live across the street from these set-ups might perceive that as bad feng shui and therefore place a round mirror outside their window facing these poles, as a means of directing the bad energy back towards the aggressor.

To direct a convex black surface, as in the bottom of a sooty wok towards someone is deemed the ultimate curse and jinx because it radiates bad energy.  When transferring contents from a wok or cooking pan into a dish at an occupied dining table, one is reminded to never turn the bottom of the wok or the pan towards the seated occupants.  It is considered to be very rude and impolite at the very least, and runs afoul of the possibity of bestowing bad luck on the ones who had to face the underside of these utensils.

I am sure the artist had no nefarious intents in his heart but his lack of understanding of the Chinese culture and his stereotypical interpretation caused a huge uproar by invoking two of the worst taboos.  He put the dragon in a headlock shackle and to reinforce the insult by training the dragon head towards the bottom of a sooty wok.  To fuel the divide, the city's Development Commission was proposing  a re-branding of Old Town/Chinatown to "New Chinatown/Japan Town" at the same time.  The local Chinese community vehemently opposed the proposal.   Sometimes I wonder if the stars could really line up in a bad way.  Honestly, this was a perfect storm and someone forgot to read his horoscope.

It is almost impossible for a non-Chinese to perceive the gravity of such violations, yet these are as real as the sun and the moon.  There's nothing petty about it.  The aftermath involved removal of the head and tail of the dragon, so only the abacus etc. with the tripods remained.

Alright, to return from my segue, some Chinese would invert the writing of 福 (Bliss) because the act of inverting (倒 ) sounds the same as 到 (arrive, having arrived).

normal orientation

inverted orientation, symbolizing Bliss has indeed arrived.

Our culture has so many latent rules and taboos that many label as superstition.   Thus when you encounter an upside-down writing of Bliss you know that is done on purpose and not due to illiteracy.  A rat poking its head through a paper that says Bliss could be interpreted as the animal disrupting or vandalizing Bliss.  I might be over-thinking and being too cautious but I definitely do not want to be guilty of such an offense.

I painted in the areas that would show flesh color first.  Thus the ears, the paws and the nose.  I decided to forgo the Rat's right paw.  I believe the composition as it stood looked better, and one could always make the assumption that the head was hiding the right paw.

I loaded my brush with titanium white, and dip the tip in a little bit of rouge, such that each brushstroke started with pink but the main body of the brushstroke was white.

I didn't want to just fill the void with color;  I wanted individual, distinct brushstrokes to lay down the color information.  I suppose a casual audience wouldn't have noticed the difference, but here the brush tip and belly defined the form, and the pencil sketch helped to locate the brushstroke but was not an absolute boundary.  The resulting image hopefully would show more life and soul, and not a rigid two dimensional form languished on a piece of Xuan.

Having taken care of the exposed areas, I started to write in the Rat's hair.  The repeated writing of short lines was very helpful to my obsessive compulsive behavior.

Next came the eyes

 

Now I totally understand why Chinese places such importance on the "Eye Painting" ceremony in Lion/Dragon Dance or in Dragon Boat Races.  The addition of eyes seems to bestow life to the lifeless object.  

Time to add shadows and fluff up the fir on this animal

Painting the red square paper

Write in the Chinese word "Bliss" after everything is dried

What remained to be done was to tidy up my Rat and add in whiskers.

Happy Year Of The Rat

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Hero's Journey continued

Now that we have witnessed the Ball Drop in Times Square, and the Potato Drop in Boise Idaho, we should be working on our new resolutions.  I belong to the camp that not having a new year's resolution is the right thing to do; one less area to fail and promises not kept.

I removed all the books and stationary covering my Hero's Journey painting which I started towards the end of last year, and prepared to continue my journey.

I left 4 dancers on my Xuan when I said goodbye to 2019, and I wanted to increase the size of the dance troupe.  What I had dreamt up was that each member represented different stages in my Hero's Journey, thus the various poses implied difference circumstances and paths in life.  Obviously I hope the congregate assembly of these dancers could compose or depict the process of life, as demonstrated by their movements.

I decided to add 3 more dancers to the left margin.  Their relatively stationary poses perhaps symbolized the embryonic stages of the journey, where there were musings and preparations.  These dancers were waiting for the right moment to be swooped up in the gravity defying grand jete, or an extravagant arabesque.  As their preparations in life matures, they excecute.

I debated on whether to add more dancers to my painting at this point.  I decided against it as I was worried about crowding.

For reasons that are still unbeknownst to me, I started to paint some streaks on the bottom of the painting.  I hated it.  It appeared as if I was trying to create a landscape for my dancers.

I sensed that I had mucked up my painting.  I suppose one way to redeem it was to paint in stripes

to simulate a ribbon effect.

The observant viewer could see little specks of color in the painting.  Those are the results of past bleed through on my wool under pad.  As the paper becomes wet, it extracted whatever was left in the pad.  This is a problem that I encounter all the time, especially when shampooing my carpet.

Fragments of pigment or dried up ink crust would fall onto the carpeting and be obscured by the piles.  Upon contact with the wet shampoo solution they dissolved and stain the carpeting.  I've learnt my lesson and mandate myself to do a thorough vacuuming first before shampooing.

In hind sight I should have left the painting alone because I am not pleased with the ribbons.  I think they distract from the story and render the piece rather prosaic.  I prefer the native color of the paper better.

Well, there's always the next stop, as the journey continues.  I'm not ready for my coda

Hero's Journey

The term Hero's Journey seems to be nuanced and cannot be explained in simple terms.  Or is it nuanced and simply does not need explanation?

I entered in a call for works with that theme a few years back and I've been ruminating on that term ever since.

Does the Hero's Journey always involve stories about overcoming hardship with a triumphant return?
Invariably stories like the Star Wars or Hua Mulan comes to mind.  What about Zhu Bajie, the character from Journey To The West, a character I borrowed to be my harbinger of abundance?  Was his transformation a hero's journey?

What if the story entails the ultimate sacrifice of life, only to ascend into the heavens and return.  So is the resurrection a triumph or just something to mock the mortals?

What if the story is about meditating under a Bohdi tree, finding enlightenment and then sharing it with those who seek it, is that not a Hero's journey?

What if the story is not a noble one in the commonly accepted context but is about grueling rituals and practises, as in dancers honing their techniques, musicians enduring all the etudes, and artists enduring tribulations in finding beauty.  Do all the frayed ballet shoes, blistered bunions, spent reeds, detached bow hairs, mutilated paint brushes witness the journey; are the afore mentioned practitioners not  heroes?

Must triumph be the only outcome to these journeys?

As I rummage through the works of my colleagues, as well as my own and reflect on the year, I come to realize that not all such journeys are triumphant.  Many of our journeys end up as a litany of banal images, succumbing to the stereotypical perception of what Chinese painting is about.  Thus the run of the mill swallows, bamboo leaves, gold fish and cherry blossoms; insipid works.  Some of us have actually regressed.  If our wardrobe consists of the same 2 pairs of pants, we would have a hard time creating a new look over time.  It gets stale really fast.  Perhaps we all have our own version of Triumphant Trumpet Fanfare.  Perhaps I am tone deaf myself.

Thus I would like to express my own journey with the help of some dance movements.  Aside from the requisite hard work, and the boring repetitions of the hand and feet ballet positions, one has to be a connoisseur of beauty, and a certain degree of narcissism is definitely helpful.  Most of all, I find myself resonating in the visual and tactile presentation of dance.  This is a journey of work, perseverance but not necessarily glory or triumph.  In the end, the only redemption value is perhaps to the artist and no one else.

I painted from my dishes of left over color.  What can be more symbolic than using up what's left as the old year churns to an end.  A little re-hydration was all that was necessary.

I found the relationship of the torso with the limbs intriguing.  The painting of the extended limbs exhilarating.  I treated them as if I was doing calligraphy, composing the placement of the different parts of the written word character.     With appropriate pauses and nudging of the brush I could depict the flared trousers and sleeves as carried by the inertia of the choreographed moves, adding to the appearance of motion.

The individual poses perhaps representing the different stages of a journey, with segues, momentary pauses, sometimes without directions.  I am not necessarily depicting a horizontal time continuum, but rather a schematic of the possible stations in this journey.  Some of us will find glory in this process, other won't.

One thing is for sure.  Hero's Journey is nuanced.  As I am trying to verbalize with my brush and make sense of my own interpretation, time is ticking away.  I'm still trying to find my compass. Therefore I shall emerge from my abyss and post my current moment as a marker on this final day of the year.

Fare thee well, 2019.

Freeze the balls off brass monkey

Come off it!  I am not referring to the euphemistic colloquial description of testicles.  Or am I ?

I am just recounting my own experience with words and language.  As a non-native English speaker I often wonder where some English words or phrases come from.  In fact I was taking those words literally for quite a while because it was embarrassing to ask for its true meaning, and that many are as clueless as I am, even for native English speakers.

So with the advent of the web, I can do a lot of searching on my own, its authenticity and correctness notwithstanding.  At least it is  a starting point.  Now I know the phrase probably refers to the iron cannonballs falling off a brass tray which holds them.  Freezing and unfreezing supposedly cause the cannonballs to contract and shift, thus the stack collapses off the brass tray.  However, even this explanation is refuted by some.

Recently I had an experience with a nationally televised program which title borrows from Confucius and food.  The show tries to explore the intricacies of Chinese cuisines and in a tongue in cheek way tries to identify the origin of different foods by asking questions of the competing cultures; allowing them to assert dips on the origin of that food.  An example is whether cured ham, cured meat, pizza etc. originated from China.  You get the picture.  The host chef would visit chefs from different countries to get their opinion, and sometimes the show would even seek archaeological documentation and historians to support the claim.  We all know that this is not going to settle anything, but the production delves into a wide aspect of food related topics and culture and practices and the spin is fun and educational and certainly entertaining.

In episode #203 the host chef summoned a lot of effort to explain to the audience that the Chinese word 食 (eat) is made up of 人 (man) and 良 (good) by writing the Chinese character out on a chalkboard.  The assertion was that the Chinese word "eat" means it is good for a person (to eat).  I suppose such gallant and theatrical effort augments the sincerity and the authenticity of the explanation.

Except that I found the explanation to be contrived. Novel, perhaps.

As a native Chinese speaker I had taken the word for granted and never gave it any second thoughts.  Fueled by my questioning mind I explored the etymology of the word.  I wished I had my 辭源 ( a Chinese dictionary compendium of meaning, application and etymology of Chinese words) with me, but failing that I resorted to Baidu.

In this Chinese version of web encyclopedia, it stated that 良 actually means  quite a few things; "nice", "quite", "docile", "eternal", "virtuous" are some of the choices. Thus the word 食 (eat)  which combines "man" and "nice" could be construed to mean " to eat is good for a person", as the program suggested.

In the Chinese dictionary 辭海, the word 食 is treated as a radicle from which other words are built upon and not as separate radicles of  "man " and "nice".  In other words, Chinese language and writing treats 食 as a single word, and not divided into two separate components as asserted by the food show program.  Allow me to draw a parallel with English words: alcoholic means containing alcohol, acidic means sour.  These are examples of separating a word into 2 components to get the gist of word.  The same rule however does not apply to the word "antic".  

Actually the word 食 has nothing to do with either "man" or "good" or "nice"  The word 食 is a transformation from ancient pictography which painted a picture of food with a cover on it.

The left symbol is the original oracle bones script version, depicting a lid on edibles; and the word on the right is the modern day version.

I also consulted a Chinese site Guoxuedashi (國學大師) and it again points to the hieroglyphic script that shows a roof cover or lid or top, with the middle part resembling the vessel that holds food and the bottom part depicting a base that supports the vessel and the lid.  For the viewers who read Chinese, here is the excerpt from the site

I am attaching a picture of one such item (perhaps ?) from my fireplace mantel to show the lid and the container with base.

Thank you to the programming for leading me down the rabbit hole to explore my own culture.

I contacted the program to share with them my findings.  Their explanation is that Chinese characters can be analyzed at multiple levels, and that they had consulted with people who are Chinese born and educated in Chinese cuisines.  Now the first part of the sentence is correct but the second part is as valid as asking an avid British air traveler about the history of their Comet Airliner.  Better yet, what is the meaning of the archaic word Husbandman?  Any guesses as to how many native English speaker know the meaning of that word (Answer: farmer). I am a native born Chinese for more years than I care to elaborate, and yet I didn't know the true derivation of the word 食.  So the program producer pitted one native Chinese against another.  I posed the same question to some of my ethnic Chinese friends, and none of them could give me the correct answer.  We, as native Chinese, have taken our own writing for granted.  Equating a native Chinese as the de facto authority in Chinese word etymology is a slippery slope.  I understand that the prime objective of the food show is perhaps entertainment and not accuracy.  As they put it, that is subject to interpretation. Perhaps they have bit off more than they could chew. 

Picture me trying to elucidate "freeze the balls off brass monkey" by placing a monkey made of brass on a table and try to freeze its balls off?  Pretty absurd, isn't it?

Our local culture venue clearly had the same assumption by inviting Chinese calligrapher and painter to do demonstration of the brush art.  As these artists gyrated their brushes, slanting the shafts of their instruments into a dance, the audience, and the venue deemed beautiful and credible art was made.  The audience was given an opportunity to learn about the art of Chinese calligraphy and painting.  That was the intention.

This is an example of the calligraphy of the day

Notice the lack of definition in the turns in the blue circle.  This is due to failure to control the down force, forcing the hairs of the brush to work beyond their capability.  The heavy line preceding the blue circle is an indication of this impending doom.

Contrast that with this example

notice how all the twists and turns are resolute and decisive.  The energy of the brushstroke does not diminish throughout the writing.  The calligrapher had utmost control of the writing instrument.

The red circle again signifies a heavy smudge resulting from a failure to lift the brush.  As if to extinguish a cigarette.   In other words, lack of control of the brush.

Now look at an example of a proper brushstroke

notice in the first character within the blue circle, the lift to a point immediately preceding the dot  and also notice the dagger like down stroke from the second character.  And while you are at it, appreciate the twists and turns in the brushstrokes of this calligraphy piece. They are resolute and carry the energy through the strokes.

The green circle is a most abhorrent example. When it comes to the extended brushstroke, the tip of the brush must absolutely be smack in the center and the energy of stroke must be demonstrated as relentless. The stroke should feel and look like a dagger or a lightning rod, ready to discharge.  The calligrapher that day put down a dead snake with severed vertebrates and skin peeling off (my graphic animation is not meant to be derisive but to make a point).  It is obvious that instead of putting the tip of the brush right down the middle, he instead placed it on the left.  This is the same as driving a car with incorrect toe-in or toe-out angles.... your front tire is worn unevenly on the sides.  Then he decided to dress up the writing by making the line longer and pressed down again.  Unfortunately he never had the correct placement of the tip to begin with, so now the belly of the brush sat down and formed the triangular sliver hanging by a thread.

This is how it should be done

Thus the calligrapher of the day was not paying attention to the tip of the brush and that is the basis of Chinese brush calligraphy.  The tip to Chinese calligraphy is to know your tip.  He was clearly outside of his tessitura, to quote a vocal term.

When it came to painting demonstration, another artist presented a example of his work to validate his skill in brush painting

and then proceeded to give the audience something like this during the demonstration:

It simply did not compute.  Where did he learn to paint a highway lane dividing line as contour line of a mountain.  How did the brushstrokes from his sample work deteriorated into pencil drawing?

What I am alluding to here are examples of the failure of learning by rote.  We as students learn and study by emulating, copying works from classical masters.  This is true for calligraphy students and painting students alike.  Except that a lot of us, myself included, fail to internalize the fundamentals of the craft.  Thus we are forever in a state of emulating, stifling any sense of originality.  The result is when the source material, the Tie for example in calligraphy, is taken away, we are left with striking an awkward pose, like an amateur model.

Incidentally, Chinese seldom refer to brushstroke as a brushstroke per se.  We use the word 筆觸 (brush contact, brush touch) to denote brushstroke.  Thus more emphasis is placed on the contact patch than the simple act of motion of the brush.  There is a subtle yet critical difference in the interpretation of the brush movements.

It is not my intention to be especially harsh or nitpicking with these artists.  It is perhaps my fervent desire to separate fact from fiction; fad from substance.  Chinese brush art is a somewhat arcane form of art and some of the aesthetic cues are not evident to the casual onlooker.  The fact that some native Chinese can write something with a brush doesn't automatically qualify him as a Chinese calligrapher or a painter.  For that matter, anybody who wields a Chinese brush.  By knowingly maintaining my silence and not pointing out the proper yardstick to use  I would be contributing to the ignorance and the platitude.  To me, Chinese brush art appreciation and wine drinking, especially the red variety, share some similarities.  A wine consumer does not necessarily have to know the science of tannins, but one should be able to at least tell the difference that tannins contribute to the brew.  The average red wine drinker might not be able to identify a Shiraz from a Malbec, but should be at the very minimum able to taste the difference.  I am just trying my best to show the tannins in Chinese brush works.

Speaking of being esoteric, I retrieved a painting from my friend's garbage can.  It was discarded because my friend thought the painting was a failure, obviously.

I looked at the painting and was amazed at the quality of the brushstrokes.  To me, that was a prime example of how to "write" a painting.  I was in fact, jealous.

It reminded me of a past encounter, the Iquazu Falls, only more poetic

One has to appreciate all the discrete brushstrokes; the way the thundering water is depicted:

No smudging, not much of a wash.  Absolutely not a fill in the space with color type of "painting".
Even the simple birds are written strokes and not painted strokes.  As if a word is being written.

and be engulfed by the turbulent torrent.

So I convinced my friend to reconsider.

She did.

Incidentally the only alteration she did to the piece after reviving it from the garbage can was to add in the flock of birds to give the waterfalls some perspective.

The painting was entered in a local arts showcase competition but failed to jury in.

I know art appreciation is very subjective, but I also know that not all jurors here possess the education to properly appreciate Chinese brushwork.  I believe a lot of them are like the audience and the sponsors in the demonstration; skimming the surface and being ignorant of the tannins.  This is not a passive consolation or sour grapes.  It is just my perceived reality.

So my friend entered her painting at an international Chinese brush painting competition.  Second Place she was awarded.  Perhaps this is due to the nature of the competition, being limited to the genre of Chinese brush painting, instead of the local open call.  Nonetheless, justice and vindication at last.

Again, I am not trying to be a snob and be critical about the Foodie program or the local art scene that I described, not in a malicious way anyways.  I am trying to point out the less obvious and to address some of the misconceptions; about somethings that we often take for granted.

I am grateful that the Foodie program stirred me to find meaning in something as fundamental as 食.

I am grateful that the brass monkey is not a primate.

I am grateful that balls of brass monkey are not anatomical features.

Now I just need to investigate how cold the witch's tits are.

Wet Mounting

Having experimented with heat mounting with plastic food wrap and failed, I resolved to staying with the traditional wet mount.  The caveat being if I wanted the float effect, then I would go for my proprietary Suliao Xuan Ban method.

I have the "no roof" version of the Korean Maidens that needs mounting.

I had described my Xuliao Xuan Ban method in detail in past posts, so in the interest of allowing equal time, I would describe the process of wet mounting in this blog.

There are some basic tools needed for the wet mounting process, which is in itself quite esoteric, so bear with me.

We need

1. a clean and smooth surface sufficiently large enough for the painted work
2. a hard, dry surface for the mounted work to dry
3. 3 brushes: one for applying starch, one for initial pressing and a more robust one for final pressing
4. starch solution
5. stack of newspaper
6. spray bottle of water
7. clean rags
8. an underlayment paper, typically another piece of  Xaun
9. steady hands and patience

The starch solution can be prepared by mixing regular household all purpose starch in an aqueous solution of alum.  Sometimes a sprinkle of camphor powder is mixed in.   I still don't have a clear understanding of why the alum is needed.  I was told that it helps to ensure color-fasting of the painted work.  The camphor helps to ward off silverfish.  Use the camphor sparingly, as the fumes can be overpowering.  The starch and alum solution should be mixed thoroughly and all lumpiness are eliminated.  We don't want the initial suspension to be too diluted, as we need to add boiling water to this mixture to obtain the starch.

It is a common mistake to thicken this suspension by boiling over a stove, as in gravy making. This will result in too thick a product which is not suitable for mounting purpose.  The trick is to boil a kettle of water, and drizzle that into the starch suspension with constant stirring.  The end stage is revealed by a change of the appearance of the suspension.  It will take on a glistening, translucent look, with a consistency of skim milk.  If your finished product looks pasty, add more boiling water.  This thin starch can be stored in a refrigerator for quite a few months without losing any viability.  The stored suspension will separate.  Fret not, it works just fine by stirring and reconstituting.

I use a porcelain trough for my starch basin, the wide brush is for applying starch.
The red taped brush is for initial pressing, the bubble pack wrapped brush is for final hard pressing.

I used a large piece of Plexiglas (4 ft x 5 ft) as my work surface.  It was thoroughly cleaned with water and alcohol before use.

My Koren Maiden painting laid face-down on the Plexiglas ( notice the maidens are on the left now since we are looking at the backside). Now the entire painting was sprayed with clean water.  This was done to relax the fibers of the Xuan.

This is when patience is needed.  Typically huge bubbles would form and the painting would not be sitting flat on the Plexiglas.  Rather it would appear like a fresh piece of naan bread with the bubbles.
Our natural tendency would be to lift the wet painting and reposition it to assume a flat appearance.
Don't do that, unless of course you want to shred your painting.  The water added weight to the painting; along with the suction that was formed from the two wet surfaces sticking to each other created an ideal formula to form tears.

Wait this out.  As the painting slowly dried it regained its integrity while being relaxed at the same time.  Now we could tenderly lift and manipulate the moist painting to lay flatter on the Plexiglas.  It didn't need to be perfect, as the starch application would even things out.

The broad brush was primed with the starch solution and brushed onto the back of the painting.  Starting at the center of the painting and using firm but appropriate force spread the starch towards the edges and the corners.  Since the brush is made of firm bristles and the starch solution is wet and slimy, the brush actually glided on the backside of the painting with ease, all the while smoothing out and leveling any creases.  Stubborn creases could be eliminated by repeated wetting of more starch and passing over with the brush.

The repeated starch application and passing over the paper caused abrasion to the backside of the Xuan.  This was evidenced by the appearance of clumps of paper fibers.  No worries, these would blend nicely with the starch solution and would not be noticeable in the finished product.

In order to thoroughly apply starch to the backside of the painting, we were over brushing.  Before the next step in the wet mounting process could be done, we must rid any errant starch with a clean wet rag around the edges of the painting.  There shouldn't be any starch other than on the back of the painting.

Now we need to apply the underlayment paper.  The underlayment is typically another piece of Xuan which is similar to the one used for painting.  This piece need to have a border of about 3-4 inches around the painting to be mounted.  The underlayment is folded and creased along the short and long edges of the painting.  This is for the purpose of positioning the underlayment onto the painting.  Since the underlayment is larger than the painting itself, when applied over the back of the painting, we would be covering it in the blind.  Thus we needed some way to know exactly where the painting is.

Thus the folds represent the edges of the painting.  It would be relatively simple to line up the folded edges of the underlayment with the edges of the painting, which is on the Plexiglas, with starch applied to the backside.

Once the edges were lined up, we unfurl the underlayment onto the starched painting, with the help of the smaller red tape brush.  The brush is made of palm fiber bristles and is therefore stiff.  Using rapid up and down strokes the underlayment is brushed onto the starched painting.

The underlayment would begin to take on the starch from the backside of the painting.  It would look moist  and perhaps showing some minor raised ridges from the uneven wetting of the underlayment by the starch.

This is the time to pile on newspaper onto the underlayment.  I would use 3 to 4 layers of the newspaper.  The newspaper served to purpose of soaking up excess moisture, but mainly to protect the underlayment and the painting from the harsh pressing with the palm fiber brush.

I wrapped my brush with bubble wrap to help protect my fingers and my palm.  During the pressing process I would start from the center and press firmly outwards.  The purpose was to press the underlayment firmly onto the starched painting, forcing out any air bubbles and flattening any raised ridges.  The rough fibers could cause blisters to form on my palm and fingers if I didn't shield them properly.

The stiff palm fibers actually flattened out from the exertion of force

This is what a properly pressed and flattened underlayment looked like

So we now had a sandwich of underlayment and starch, with the painting on the bottom, facing down.  Hence it was critical that we wiped off any excess starch because we didn't want this sandwich to stick to the Plexiglas work surface.

Now we applied a judicious amount of starch along the edge of the underlayment, paying utmost attention to avoid the painting itself, which we could discern.

This is a graphic representation of what we had so far

Now lift this completed assembly and move it onto a dry, hard surface.  I used a half-door for my purpose.  So now we would be throwing the assembly right-side-up onto the door, with the starch on the bottom, along the edge of the underlayment.

We fixed the top edge onto the door first, tamping the edge down with the red-taped brush.

move the brush down along the surface of the painting and along the edges

The starch that was applied to the edges of the underlayment held the mounted work in place.  So now we had the painting with the right side out, starched onto a piece of underlayment, which again was starched along the edges and affixed to the door.

This assembly was left to dry.  The slower the drying process, the better would be the result.  The drying shrank the paper, and along with the starch rendered the painting flat and taut.

Remember your starched shirts?  Nice.

So this wet mounting process gave stiffness and provided white balance to the painting.

After complete drying of the assembly, the painting was harvested by lifting the underlayment off the door, or by cutting along the edges of the underlayment.  The oversized underlayment provides a nice place to apply mat tapes if one chooses to display the work with a matted border in a picture frame.

In my hast, or rather, lack of care, I eyeballed my folding positions on the underlayment.  The final result being the painting was not in the middle.  It tilted to the right.

Fortunately I had sufficient border left for the application of starch along tall he edge of the underlayment.  I lucked out.

After careful examination there was only one defect on my mounted painting.  I missed one of the creases and didn't brush it out so it was folding upon itself.  Fortunately the omission was minor and most people would not have noticed.

I have the examples of the wet mount and my dry mounted Suliao Xuan Ban for comparison.
The no-roof version is the wet mount and the roofed version is dry mount.