Creating a catalogue of paper

Calligraphy paper such as xuan paper is not cheap. And it is also an item that gets consumed quickly in practice. I try to overcome this issue by buying paper from auction and other resale sites (like Mercari). One issue is that most of these resellers do not have much knowledge about calligraphy, and so I usually just buy paper for the purpose of practice, paying the price I would for practice paper. Then, when the paper arrives, I give it a try to see if it can be used for anything other than practice. Or if it is so bad that it should be used for initial drafts instead.

This also means I end up with all kinds of paper with different names, all in small quantities, and it can be difficult to remember what paper to use for what purpose. So I went about creating my own catalogue of paper.

It is a simple process. Cut two pieces of each paper, write down its name in pencil, then use a goat hair brush to write characters on one piece, and a bear hair brush to write characters on another piece.

Then, collect all those written with the goat hair brush into a stack, and those with the bear hair brush into another stack, and tada! Catalogues of paper!

Now, when I want to find paper that achieves a certain effect when writing, I just have to flip through the catalogues based on whether I am using a soft brush (goat hair) or a harder one (bear hair) to select the paper that I want.

When I get new paper, all I need to do is repeat this process, then add to the catalogue. Simple, primitive, but effective! I can even write notes on the catalogues too.

Anyway, now that I have submitted my piece for the upcoming exhibition, my rate of posts on calligraphy should slow down for a while. Until the deadlines for the next two exhibitions draw nearer next year.

Update 31 October 2023: I try to keep this cataloging process as "scientific" as possible, using the same ink (玉品 made with 40ml of water using an ink machine running for 1 hour; 玉品 is a readily available stick ink from 墨運堂), and the same goat hair brush (精品純羊毫 "天") and bear hair brush (large 水墨丹青). This means that when I get additional paper, I can repeat the process.