What kind of paint is better for painting on a kite?

It depends on the material the kite is made of

If it is made of paper, it can be painted first, or it can be painted after it is made, with watercolors, which are inexpensive

If it is made of fabric, it can be chosen first as well

Nowadays, there are a lot of colors available in the making of kites, and therefore no one has made it important to solve the color problem.

But in the past there were not so many inexpensive chemical dyes and mechanism pigments, and many of the colors used in kite workshops were made in-house, and they were not only inexpensive, but also beautiful - colorful and durable. Here I would like to take a little space in this book to introduce several pigment preparation methods passed down by old artists in the past, which can help to understand the historical background and may be useful in some specific situations.

1. Taking black smoke method:

When painting kites in the past, the black color was not used in ink, but in pots of smoke. Because of the black with pot smoke, not only from the mortar with very little money, and the black thick black opaque, which is the ink can not reach. Thatch, wood cooking, long time pot bottom will be filled with a thick layer of black smoke. Sweep down gently with a pipe broom (not to be scraped with an iron), and then add people beforehand boiled cowhide glue, mix well and then put on a warm fire to boil, and then hydrolyzed well, put in a cup, and so on impurities sink, bleach its above the net fat can be used. The black used in woodblock printing without glue, but with starch cooked into a thin porridge, and then under the pot of smoke in the stirring, you can brush the plate. Printing with this black, that is, not sticky paper, and do not lose color.

2. decoction rouge method:

First of all, the harvested comfrey stalks (perennial herbaceous plants, oval alternate leaves, rough leaf surface, small white flowers in summer, the root skin purple, dry available) pestle and mortar, to its wooden stalks, each 50 grams can get about 35 grams, plus seven or eight leaves, with snow water in a casserole dish, boil, cook gently with a gentle fire to the purple stems of the soft, picked up the press crushed, and then simmered to six or seven times! Send out bubbles until, and then drop the purple juice in a porcelain bowl, filter the dregs, and then put on the fire to simmer in, then into the purple paste.

3. fried acacia yellow flower method:

The acacia flower stalks sun open, plus lime in the pan frying crushed, and then fried alum water poured into the pot, stirred with a stick of yellow water juice (this juice can be used to formulate the other colors), the rest of the powdered yellow can be added with a sliver or paste to draw a kite with.

4. The method of making indigo:

Take indigo grass (also known as lonesome blue) and put it in a jar, add water and macerate it, and when it is fermented, add lime and stir it with a stick to make indigo water, and then filter out the impurities and make it into a paste called "flower green" or "indigo". These "paste" can be used when dissolved in water.

5. three green:

The first milk bowl will be the color of fine research, or hand dipped in water and twisted fine, and then add dilute glue, glue can not be thick, thick is not delicate. When used to take the surface layer of fine fat, underneath the sinking color can be re-developed. Chinese traditional color method only the above five examples can be seen, now will be combined with the glue alum method, for the reader's reference.

6. Hop gum alum method:

The alum research into fine powder, with boiling water into alum water, clarification of the ballast, will be a good gum into the pot boiling, dilute the water, pouring alum water, with the tongue taste, such as too astringent flavor is alum more than glue, such as the taste of the alum is less than glue, lick the taste of the sour is just right. Summer to use more alum, winter is less alum. If chemical dyes can be bought in the Chinese market, the kites are painted with "pincolor". This is a kind of water-soluble dyestuffs, which can be completely dissolved in water, there is no insoluble particles, therefore, these pigments can be used without adding glue, so after painting on some papers, it does not shrink when it dries, the weight increase is very little, and it has high transparency, and the light transmittance is better. The kites painted with magenta colors are especially bright and vivid against the light, which is incomparable with other insoluble pigments. The commonly used magenta colors are magenta (red), magenta green, acacia yellow, lake blue, green lotus, rose essence (fuchsia), acidic peach, alkaline orange and so on. The disadvantage of "magenta" is that some colors (such as yellow, green, etc.) have poor durability and will fade over time.

Now there is a better transparent color, that is, to the water color color "color ink", such as the Beijing pen parts factory produced by the three rings of the brand color ink, twelve colors in a box. Its degree of vividness is not less than "color", but durability is much stronger than the general color. But the price is much higher than the product color. In addition to the national painting color, water color, watercolor, watercolor, acrylic color in painting kites can be used, but it is best not to use a large area. Black in addition to ink and pot smoke, but also available carbon ink and so on. For the use of nylon silk, brocade silk, non-woven fabrics, plastic film and other new materials to make masked kites, landscaping when the colors used also have new requirements, for example. With acrylic colors and plastic inks can be used on these materials. In addition on nylon silk and brocade silk can also be used to print and dye the method to achieve better results.

Three, the treatment of the bottom

There are many kites in the painting before the bottom color, this section will talk about the treatment of the bottom color. For example, the wing of a Jing sinu or cicada kite has to be primed before the texture is painted. The red Jing蜒 uses a red base color, the green Jing蜒 uses a green base color, and the cicada usually uses a yellow base color.

The base color is usually applied before the kite is glued. Because of the base coloring on a large area of coloring, the requirements of uniformity or gradient, often the first paper or alum silk spread on the tabletop, on the surface of the first board brush with a layer of water, so that it is wet, and then use the board brush evenly coated with transparent color, and so a little bit of drying for a while, is not yet completely dry when brushing again, until the moderate until. Allow to dry completely and then iron with an iron. If there is no gradation of color required, the base color can be treated by dyeing. Dissolve good color into a flat plate (such as washing photos with a flat plate) the paper or silk cut into less than the width of the flat plate, take the paper (or silk) end of the two corners, so that it is immersed in the color of the water, and then gently along the edge of the plate with the paper is all wet with coloring, and so the whole paper is pulled out of the excellent water after the paper is gently hanged on a rope prepared beforehand, like drying the same as a sheet, to be dry and then ironed to be able to use it. If you can buy a pre-dyed colored paper, colored silk can also be used directly, do not have to dye it.

Four, line

Prepared to have a background color or no background color masking materials, you can start painting. Painting before the first ink line on white paper to draw a good 1 / 1 of the "sample", the details of the pattern should be drawn, just do not have to color. The prepared masking material spread in the "big sample" on the brush to outline all the lines, according to the requirements of the pattern, with a black edge of the whole ink line out, the big black side with ink dyeing, individual patterns are white or color edge with white powder or color out. The requirements for tracing lines are: accurate, even, smooth and symmetrical.

V. Dyeing

The coloring. For no alum over the "raw paper", "raw silk" in the outline of the pattern on the coloring before, first in the coloring part of the pen on the gum alum water once again, to dry before coloring. Where a large area of coloring, as much as possible to use transparent water color, small area of coloring can be opaque colors. Such as in special circumstances, to a large area with opaque colors, must not be too thick, too thick, otherwise it will cause the partial stiffness of the mask or local shrinkage, so that the whole mask can not be used.

Sixth, retouching

The retouching and outlining method after dyeing the color with the painting, we will not go into detail here.

Seven, the sequence of gluing and painting

The last thing to be mentioned is the sequence of "gluing" and "painting". There are three different ways to draw Chinese kites:

1. Paste first and then draw:

This is one of the traditional practices of folk artists. They first paste white paper onto the skeleton of the kite, and then, using pot smoke that has been mixed with glue, they draw black parts directly onto the kite. The drawings are all worked out in their minds without prior priming. When the black is dry, then color pens are used to paint in the appropriate places. Finally, the kite is painted with appropriate finishing touches. This kind of painting is like painting patterns on rough folk porcelain, which requires skillful techniques. The patterns drawn are so unrestrained and unrestrained that they are the best of Chinese folk kites, but unfortunately not many of them have been handed down nowadays.

2. Printing and then gluing, and finally filling in the color:

In order to facilitate mass production, Chinese kite artists combined the method of kite painting with the production of folk woodblock New Year paintings, forming this method of printing black stripes on woodblocks, then gluing them on the kite skeleton, and finally filling in the color or outlining the lines of the most visible brush strokes by hand. This method is widely used in mass-produced folk kites. For example, the kites of Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Bojiabu in Shandong are drawn in this way.

3. Painting before gluing:

This is the method available for single piece production and fine kites. In recent years, most of the Chinese kite enthusiasts and domestic manufacturers of kites use this method to draw kites. The steps of drawing are as follows:

(1) Prepare the unfolding drawing of the kite's mask and draw the designed pattern on it with ink lines.

(2) Cut the masking paper (or silk, etc.), place it on the unfolding plan, and sketch the pattern with a pencil.

(3) according to the pattern and color, in succession on the masking paper color, outline and fine painting. After the color dries, iron it out with an iron.

(4) Put the masking paper on the kite skeleton carefully. Special attention should be paid here to the pattern of the interface part, which should be spelled correctly and aligned.

(5) Final touches.

Eight, the beautification of foreign kites

Here is a brief introduction to the beautification methods of some foreign kites:

There are many foreign kites, like Chinese kites, are mainly painted. For example, the traditional Japanese kites are mainly painted, and they use "samurai painting" on the kites, which makes the Japanese kites unique. Their painting method is also similar to that of Chinese kites. But there are still many countries with different methods of kite beautification, some of which are worth learning and borrowing:

1. The overall treatment of the big color:

such as a big black shark, all made of black cloth, only a few white teeth and a pair of white eyes, put in the air, the far effect is very good.

2. Color blocking.

As a big bird, with big red, orange, yellow and black cloth patchwork, put on the sky, glorious.

3. spray-dyeing:

such as white cloth made of kites, paper cut into flowers on the white cloth, and then spray-dyeing with purple, and then remove the paper spray-dyeing after the purple cloth shows white flowers. Then use the same method to spray-dye the heart of the flower with other colors. This method is better than using a pen to save time, the big effect is good.

4. Tie-dye:

With cloth or paper, partial line tightly tied up, and then put into the pigment dye. After drying, open the tied part to form a natural light-white pattern. Using this method to paste the kite, beautiful and generous.

5. Patching:

On the kite made with monochrome paper, various patterns are dug out and then patched up with colored paper, forming a beautiful pattern. The diamond-shaped kites in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, use this method, and the beautification effect is very good.

Excerpted from "Four Arts of Wind Kite" written by Mr. Wang Jienian