Fusing East and West - Painting Doublette Leaves

Painting soft gradients onto hand-cut German doublette crepe paper leaves using Marie’s Chinese Painting colors is my way of weaving East and West into a single surface. The sturdy texture of the crepe, with its stretch and structured grain, meets the translucence and heritage of painting colors. In blending these materials, I’m not chasing realism, but something dreamier: a softened version of nature filtered through memory, gesture, and time.

My understanding is Chinese painting colors (like Marie’s, or traditional ink painting pigments) often use a binder like animal glue or plant starch rather than gum arabic. This creates a more matte, velvety finish and a slightly more absorptive, less shiny quality than Western watercolors. Hence, the paint tends to sink into the paper more, a useful quality when dealing with doublette which is more difficult to paint than standard watercolor paper.

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