This is a wonderful product offered by wonderfully helpful folks at Blue Heron. It has made mounting my sumi-e work so much easier, less messy, and by for more successful. I followed the clear and helpful instructions offered by Henry on YouTube and by Victoria right here on the website and experienced no problems whatsoever. Everything worked exactly as they demonstrated. I highly recommend the silicone dry mounting paper as a happy solution for the thin and wrinkly rice paper created by brush painting. Be sure that your iron is the proper temperature, that you don't 'soak' your rice paper (just dampen as in the video) and iron on a firmly padded surface. Victoria suggesst 3 or 4 layers of denim; I used two layers of heavy, raw, canvas. I also found that the silicone paper should be cut with an X-acto knife rather than scissors because the silicone tends to cling to the scissors and pull away from it backing. The knife avoids that problem. All in all I hight recommend this product and Blue Heron!
I have tried using this product five times for mounting calligraphy done on xuan paper, without success. I followed the instructions on your videos as carefully as I could, but no matter what I did the paper developed deep creases and wrinkles that I could not get out with the iron. I tried hotter settings, cooler settings, more water, less water, but nothing worked. Perhaps xuan paper is simply too thin for use with this backing paper.
Respond from Henry Li:
Sorry that it did not work out with you! Generally speaking, calligraphy could be more difficult than painting to mount because of thick ink strokes makes the rice paper uneven and is more likely to get wrinkles and creases. You may try to follow the Method B procedure by putting the silicone film on the plain backing paper first and iron the calligraphy with water mist before mounting on the backing paper.
I am new to Chinese brush painting and sumi-e (6 months of practice!) and had no idea how to even attempt to mount a painting. Wet mounting was totally out of the question with my absolute lack of knowledge and experience. I found your videos on dry mounting when I purchased your DVD on painting horses (LOVED IT!). You and your wife made the process look so within the realm of possibility, I decided to give it a try. MAJOR SUCCESS !!! With your video and written instructions as a guide, I was able to mount several of my "better" paintings, and they came out PERFECT! I was amazed at how much better they looked mounted! The film was just as easy to use as you and your wife demonstrated! Thank you for your WONDERFUL videos and for making this product available! As soon as I have a few more "nice" paintings I will definitely be ordering more of the silicone paper for dry mounting!