The Correct Glueing and Painting Sequence

The last thing to mention is the issue of the order of "pasting" and "painting". There are three different methods for drawing Chinese kites:

1. Paste first and paint later:
This is one of the traditional practices of folk artists. They used white paper to paste it nto the kite skeleton, and then used the glued pot
smoke in order to paint the black part directly on the kite. The outlinesof the drawings are all in their minds, and there is no need to draft them in advance. After the black colour is dry, use a colored pen to paint in the remaining appropriate spaces. Finally, make all the proper decorations, and the kite will be done. This kind of drawing is like drawing the patterns on coarse porcelain ware of folk art. It requires proficient skills. The drawn patterns are often sluggish and unrestrained, and they are the finest pieces of Chinese folk art kites. Unfortunately, not many have been handed down now the proficiency needed.

2. Print first, paste, and finally fill in:
In order to facilitate mass production, Chinese kite artists combined the method of drawing kites with the production of folk wood block printing of New Year pictures, printing the black outlines with the woodblock printing first, then pasteing the "woodblock print" on the kite skeleton, and finally colored out manually. This way to makes the most sharp lines. This method is widely used in mass-produced of folk art kites. For example, the kites in YangLiuQing in TianJin and YangJiaBu in Shandong were drawn in this way.

3. Paint first and paste later:
This is a single-piece production method that can be used to make fine kites. In recent years, Chinese kite enthusiasts and domestic kite manufacturers have mostly used this kind of method to make kites. The drawing steps are as follows:
(1) Prepare the unfolded drawing of the kite mask, and draw the designed pattern with ink lines on it.
(2) Cut the masked paper (or silk, etc.), place it on the unfolded drawing, and trace the pattern with a pencil/
(3) According to the pattern and color, paint on the masked paper, draw lines and finely draw. After the color is dry, use an iron to smooth it.
(4) Carefully cover the painted masking paper on the kite skeleton. Special attention should be paid to the pattern of the interface parts here, which should be accurate and often need alignement.
(5) Final modification.

back

Copyright 2002 ff: Hans P. Boehme