Paper

The invention of paper made it possible to develop brush painting as paper was more absorbent and cheaper than silk. This allowed artists to develop a freer style of painting, culminating in the large, free brush style painting of the Southern Song
The paper most commonly used today is called xuan zhi (xiuan or shuen). The name comes from the Xuancheng district in Anhui Province – original papermaking centre of China. These hand made papers are now produced all over China. Often known in the West as “rice paper”, the main ingredient is the inner bark of a species of sandalwood tree. Other fibres such as bamboo or rice straw are mixed with the bark giving different qualities. The recipe of each brand is a trade secret!
Today many other papers are also available. All Chinese papers have smooth and rougher sides. This is due to being brushed during the drying process. The most common full sheet size is 54" by 27". Longer sheets are available but the cost goes up steeply due to the difficulty of manufacturing. Some such as bark paper are machine made in long continuous rolls. Paper also comes in a number of thicknesses and in one, two or more ply (layers). Less absorbent papers are made using a coating such as alum, rice or soya bean water, or a mixture of alum and glue. Paper should be rolled up in the air, wrapped in newsprint to keep bugs at bay.

Examples
Unsized xuan paper - thin, highly absorbent paper which reacts dramatically to the brush and water. Once a mark has been made it cannot be changed. Xuan is most often used for free-style xieyi (hsieh-i) paintings of flowers, birds, animals, landscapes or vegetables. If it has a cloudy appearance and rustles it is good quality.
Double xuan paper - stronger paper made from two sheets dried one on top of the other. It is less absorbent and reactive to the brush than single ply. Sometimes used for landscape painting because it is more resilient and offers greater control.
Grass paper - inexpensive paper - sold in 4ft sheets and packs of 18” x 12” sheets. It behaves like a moderately sized paper. It can be used as a practice paper but you will need to adjust your technique when you move to Xuan.
Mao bian or bamboo paper - wonderful paper for calligraphy and painting.
Pi zhi or bark paper - strong, very absorbent paper. Used for landscape, figure and animal painting. It can also be used for mounting paintings.
Semi-sized xuan - paper that has been sized with rice water - less absorbent. It can be used for free-style, semi-meticulous painting and calligraphy but it is less reactive to brushwork.
Moon Palace paper - Japanese machine made - highly bleached white paper in a continuous roll. It is very smooth on one side and rough on the other and behaves like a semi-sized paper. It is often used as a practice paper but you will need to adjust your technique when you move to Xuan.
Sized xuan paper - standard xuan that has been sized with an alum and glue mixture. It is used for gongbi (kung pi - meticulous) painting. This style uses similar techniques to silk painting, requiring very controlled brushwork and a highly un-absorbent surface to allow you to move paint around. It can be thin, very fine (more transparent than silk) and can be treated likewise, or thick and more opaque.
Pong or linen paper - strong highly textured, sized paper - often used for lingnan painting or free style calligraphy.

Brushes
Original calligraphy brushes had very small heads made from rabbit hair glued directly into long, thin bamboo handles. These brushes were used as hair ornaments by court officials and for making notes on bamboo strips. When calligraphy developed into an art form, brushes also developed but remained fairly small. The standard “small, medium and large” sizes all originate from these early developments. Today, with new techniques and materials available, much larger brushes are available – some so large that they can only be used on the floor whilst standing upright!
Chinese brushes vary according to their function. There are different brushes for landscape, flowers, and birds; for free-style painting and meticulous work. Brushes may be soft, stiff or intermediate, and come in a range of sizes. No Chinese brushes are synthetic - all use animal hair and can contain several types. There are three classic styles of brush: cow horn ferrules and bamboo handles, bamboo handles, or ceramic handles. In all cases, the hairs are glued directly into their handles making them more fragile than Western brushes. The hollow bamboo handles are lightweight and very suitable for the fluidity required by Chinese brush painting / calligraphy. Brushes with ceramic handles tend to be heavier and harder to control.
A new, unused brush can be stored without the cap but needs protection from insects. After use, it must be washed clean, dried with paper towel, and hung on its end-loop until dry. It should be left hanging or stored in a bamboo brush mat. Good brushes keep their shape and point - after a brush stroke the head should retain its shape. Note: you should never lay more than 70% of a brush on the paper - or you could cause damage and lose control.
There are five main groups of brushes in various sizes. Select your brushes carefully. The starch holding the new brush hairs together makes it difficult to see the true quality. Good brushes are essential and the price is usually an indicator. Before buying – decide style, subjects and size of your paintings – and buy appropriate brushes.

Wolf - for ink work - reasonably priced, firm but flexible. Not made from wolf but from weasel – Chinese for weasel is yellow wolf. These are best for ink work - maximum flexibility / control. Very difficult to get long hair of this type - for larger brushes with longer hairs use Northern Wolf. Names of wolf brushes tend to suggest their subjects i.e. Fine detail, Detail, Plum blossom, or Orchid bamboo.
Goat (sheep) - softest brushes - least expensive and normally used for colour work. They are the most difficult brushes to control – but do produce excellent effects once you have mastered them. Small – petals, bamboo, branches and lines. Medium – grapes, leaves and larger versions of the above. Large – calligraphy, bamboo trunks and larger versions of the above. Extra Large – large shapes, lotus leaves, bamboo trunks and larger versions of the above.
White Cloud - mixed - a core made from stiff hairs (e.g., horse or deer) defining length, giving resilience; wrapped with softer hairs (e.g. goat) to hold large amounts of water or paint, giving expressiveness. Excellent for both colour and ink work; more controllable than sheep hair. They can be used for leaves, birds, flowers, animals – everything

Speciality Brushes
Brushes with particular qualities - derived from the hairs to create special effects. Some are used instead of wolf (for larger paintings) - much longer hairs or for different effects.
Badger hair – strong semi-stiff flexible brush, excellent for texture - large leaves and landscapes
Red Feather – made from chicken feathers. Very fine tip and a wide body holds a considerable amount of ink. Used in gongbi and very detailed fine line work.
Mountain Horse – stiff brush from the tail hairs of mountain horses. Decisive sharp lines, branches, veins, bamboo leaves, texture on rocks and mountains.
Mountain Pony – softer than mountain horse - made from the tail hairs of mountain pony. Good for sweeping strokes and soft textures.
You can also find squirrel, mountain cat, deer, pig bristle and cockerel tail feather brushes.
Wash Brushes - flat white soft hair - used for background washes and special effects. Very inexpensive and fun to use.
Pai bi (row) – made by gluing several simple goat hair brushes together. For washes and larger areas of colour, such as sky or sea. Larger ones (16 –24 rows) can be used for picture mounting.
Hake – wide range of sizes from ½” to 6" - used for washes, textures, tree trunks, landscapes, etc. Avoid those with metal ferrules. Not for mounting.

Ink

Ink comes it two main forms - liquid and solid.
Liquid ink is great for beginners and when time is limited
Chinese liquid ink - bi-product of oil refining and relatively inexpensive. Does not give the same degree of tone control as high quality stick ink.
Vermilion ink – only in large bottles - traditionally used for ink-only paintings of bamboo.
Japanese Liquid Ink - more expensive than Chinese. Developed to provide similar results to ground ink. Better quality than Chinese – with very fine particles giving a much wider range of tones.
Ink Sticks - There are many varieties of ink stick – each manufacturer has a secret recipe – but basic method is the same. A source of carbon is burnt in insufficient air, creating a very smoky flame and a fine powder deposit. This is mixed with glue, oils, herbs and perfumes making a thick black putty-like material and pressed into wooden moulds. The resulting blocks are air dried. Ink needs to be aged (like fine wine) before use. The older the ink stick - the better its grinding quality.
Ink made from tea soot - brownish black - calligraphy. Ink made from oil - deep brownish black - calligraphy, freestyle, gongbi and silk painting. Industrial charcoal soot - very fine particles and low glue content. Best ink is made from seasoned pinewood - producing a range of bluish blacks, and from tong tree oil soot - produces a range of warm blacks - both for gongbi work and silk painting.
The burning process controls the degree of fineness of carbon particles affecting colour and range of tones when diluting ink. Ink made with larger carbon particles will give a grainy texture at high dilution.
Different ink sticks are used for calligraphy and painting. Avoid highly decorated ones – unless buying them as a collector. Some very expensive inks are offered as flat, plain, round cakes.
You can also get sticks of cinnabar and black ink combined. These sticks are stripy - as you grind, the colours combine to a beautiful purplish ink much prized by Chinese landscape artists.
Ink grinding - too watery and it will not provide the darkest tones. Grind at a rate to create very fine particles - not too fast. After grinding, dry the stick on paper towel to prevent cracking. Keep away from the stone to prevent it sticking. Leave to air dry before storing. If the stick should stick to the surface of the stone, do not remove the stick by force as this may damage the surface of the stone. Pour away any remaining ink, run hot water on the stone, rock the stick gently until it comes off.
Freshly ground ink is best for most purposes. ‘Overnight’ ink (also called ‘burnt ink’) is sometimes desirable for special effects as it has a grainy texture. Overnight wash (diluted ink left covered with cling film) also creates different effects.

Ink Stone

The ink stone is a vital part of the Chinese brush painter's studio. The quality of the stone affects the ground ink. You cannot grind good ink on a poor stone even if using the best quality stick! Surface should feel very smooth and cool to touch. A fine stone will give ink that can be easily controlled - if the ink is too fine or too coarse it runs out of control and can damage your brush.
Water on the surface of the stone should remain for a long time and not soak in. The stone needs a close fitting lid that will reduce evaporation. Avoid highly decorated and colourful stones - these are made for the gift trade, not for artist use. Some expensive ink stones are subtly carved, in polished wooden boxes or have close fitting wooden lids. The most popular stone amongst Chinese artists is the simple circular stone with a concave grinding surface and a close fitting lid. When you want it, a brush-full of rich black ink should be transferred from the stone to a dish or saucer for dilution and the lid replaced immediately.
When you finish a painting session, any ink left on the stone must be removed and the stone washed in clean running water. If you leave ink on the stone it will reduce the stone’s grinding properties.

Colours

Care should be taken using / storing Chinese colours. Some are extremely poisonous, especially rattan, cinnabar, vermilion and white. Treat with respect - DO NOT LICK BRUSHES - wash hands after painting and do not eat with your fingers whilst painting.
Traditional Chinese colours are derived from vegetable (transparent) and mineral (opaque) sources. Chinese colours (like Chinese ink) contain a high proportion of size and glue so when applied to unsized paper will be quickly absorbed and will size the paper they have covered - assume you can never remove any colour applied to unsized or semi-sized papers - every brush stroke counts!

Available colours
The Chinese colour palette may appear extremely limited to a Western artist, yet they blend with each other and with ink to create a vast range of colours, shades and tones.
Blue - mineral blue (1,2,3, made from ground azurite, opaque), indigo (transparent), phthalocyanine (similar to ultramarine, transparent), Sky (opaque)
Green - mineral green (1,2,3, made from ground malachite, opaque)
Yellow – gamboges (transparent), rattan (transparent), orpiment (opaque), ochre (opaque)
Brown / Orange - burnt sienna (from iron rock, varies from source to source), vermilion (opaque)
Red – cinnabar (opaque), peony (hard to find, transparent), bright (scarlet, transparent), carmine (transparent), rouge (semi-transparent)
White - Chinese white (opaque)
Black – black (semi-transparent)

These colours are available in a number of forms -
Chips - transparent and semi-transparent colours - small 'chips' in little boxes - put into a container with a lid, or a stacking dish big enough for your brush. Spray lightly to activate glue, pick up colour using a damp brush. Note: do not screw the lid on whilst wet - they go mouldy and smelly!
Colours available in chip form include: rouge tint, carmine, bright red (scarlet), dark red, peony, burnt sienna, vermilion, orpiment, sky blue and indigo. Compared to tubes, chip colours are very expensive but purer.
Rattan - dried chunks of rattan sap - treat as chips or keep in a sealed box. Highly poisonous.
Powders - from ground minerals or stones. Most common - malachite (mineral or stone green), azurite (mineral or stone blue), cinnabar (red), ochre (straw yellow) and white. To create pigment, mineral powder is passed through a sedimentation process and allowed to settle out. Resulting sludge is divided into four or five levels of particle size. The largest - deepest shade (1), finest - palest shade (4 or 5). Vermilion and cinnabar are from the same mineral source.
To use - mix powder to a paste with special glue (usually peach stone or deer horn glue) and water. Store paste in a pot and treat as chip colours. Powder colours are very expensive compared to tubes - use on the front of silk paintings (use tube colours for painting on the back).
Colour Sticks - some colours are available in stick form – like ink. Grind in the same way, use a different stone for each colour.
Tubes of Colour - best brand is Suzhou (difficult to find). Most common brand is Marie’s Chinese painting colours - inexpensive. Two tube sizes– small (approx. 5 ml) and large (3 to 4 times size of small tubes) - singly or boxes of 12 and 18 tubes. Tubes sometimes dry out but are still usable - split the tube, decant paint and spray with water (as for chips). You can also squeeze a fresh tube into a pot.

Other equipment

Blanket - the papers are delicate so the colour and ink may stain work surface - or the colour and ink may spread and ruin the picture. An old blanket, felt, an un-textured plain tea towel or a couple of sheets of a newspaper should be used as a working surface to support your painting. A light coloured blanket or felt is preferable.
Pots to Hold Colours - stacks of clear plastic pots that screw together, in small individual pots, or in any lidded containers you can fit your brushes into.
Dishes for Mixing and Diluting Ink and Colours - small dishes, saucers, tiles or plates. Plain white is preferable to coloured. Some Chinese colours are poisonous – do not use table crockery.
Bowls for Mixing Washes - old rice or cereal bowl.
Water Pots - two water pots – one for washing brushes and one (clean) for mixing colours - make sure your pots are big enough to accommodate your brushes.
Water Spray - to moisten colour chips or dried paint from tubes, dampen paper before applying a wash, creating special effects, dampen paper before mounting, etc.
Seal Paste - very thick sticky paste made from cinnabar (mercuric oxide), oils and shredded raw silk mixed together. Good seal paste will not run or fade, but the quality of the paste may vary.
To use your seal - stir paste evenly, make a dome on the dish, tamp the seal until evenly covered, lower seal carefully into position, press down and rock gently from side to side, lift straight off. Wipe seal and store carefully, dispose of the wipe with care as cinnabar paste is poisonous.
Seals or Chops - seals on Chinese paintings and calligraphy are for different purposes. Traditional method of signing and a good protection against forgery. Used to set the mood of the painting - a simple message or part of an ancient poem. Seal makes a painting complete - small splash of red stands out and adds a touch of personalisation / authenticity.
Large numbers of seals found on ancient pictures – seals of collectors / past owners. Chinese students study seal carving as an art form. Mood seals can be readily purchased. Reasonably priced wood and rubber seals can be found, others sell stone seals - good quality but expensive. Name seals are produced specifically for you - so ask a professional to carve them.
Paper Weights - to hold the paper down, stop it from moving, keep it flat and to minimise the effects of folds or creases. Some use old Chinese coins, little figures, 50p pieces, stones or rulers. Custom-made paperweights in wood or brass.
Brush Rests - useful way to keep the colour on the brush or the damp brush off the working surface between strokes. Ideally one that keeps the brush flat to prevent the colour or ink seeping into the handle.
Brush Tamping Material - folded piece of kitchen towel on which to wipe your brush to control the water.
Brush Mat – roll brushes together in the mat and secure with a cord to protect from damage in transit.
Reference Books - to help you develop your skills. Many are written in Chinese. Look at the pictures and ask how certain effects were achieved.
Old collector’s catalogues - works of leading Chinese artists. Look in the British Museum, Ashmolean Museum and British Library for expert artists and the best of Chinese art.
Books on specific artists or subjects. Books on specific genres – Lingnan, Blue Green Landscape, Xie yi, Gong bi, etc.
Postcards and Posters - from exhibitions – an excellent source for reference and practice.
Cuttings - pictures from magazines, flyers or brochures of various subjects. These can be used as reference.
Sketchbooks and Notebooks - all Chinese artists make extensive use of sketches in their work, and make notes at seminars, workshops, courses, gallery visits, etc.