Nikawa is the japanese word for the gelatine solution that is used in certain old chinese and japanese painting styles, namely nihonga and gong bi style. The gelatine solution is used as a binder for pigments, as well as for preparation ( sizing ) of the paper, to reduce its absorbancy. In this video I used 20 g of good quality gelatine, and 200 ml of water. You can see the process in the video below...

Finally I did it. This picture was a lot of work, even if it may not look so. There are lots and lots of layers of soft grey washes done here. It may not reach the hundred-mark, but I am sure there are about 60-80 layers. For those who are interested in, I managed to remind my self of taking some work in progress pictures... so here they are: Here you can see... almost nothing. But a thing you can notice is how fine chinese rice paper is. It really is nearly about transparent

After a while, not being able to paint, I decided to finish this pice : Like most pictures I do this time, there was no sketch for this one... Unfortunately, I did no earlier picture of this painting. I just forget about that, while I am painting :(   Have to think about next time… I did a rough and wet in wet wash, for getting some texture and than try to see the ready painting in this… After being so far, I found the yellow a little bit too light, and the moon to less in co

I started now, making such small “Notans”, finding them to be a good help in planning a picture. Even if the later painting is with colors, the tone-values have a very important rule, in how the picture impact on the viewers eyes. You can have the most beautifully colors, but the will not work, if you use no different values, and on the other hand, with a good composition of dark and lighter values, it must not be necessary to use too much colors, for the image to bound the v