This watercolor painting of Chinese Peony Flowers was done on a textured rice paper that I glued to watercolor paper. The inspiration was a painting done by a Chinese artist on smooth rice paper that I saw while visiting Mainland China in 1987; the artist gave me his painting as a gift.
Chinese have a different sense of dimensions for paintings and calligraphy. They create an elongated vertical composition and write something in calligraphy typically on the far right of the painting to be read from top to bottom and if there is more than one line, it is read from right to left. At the end of the thought, on the bottom, they place their signature using a "chop" which is a carved symbol using Chinese letters that represent their name. The chop is pressed on a waxy red ink pad and then pressed onto the painting. It works much like the old tintypes for the printing press. My Chinese name was chosen for me and I had a chop made there of my Chinese name. It sounds like "Fayee Dah" and means to reach the top of the mountain and to prosper. The dimensions I use for my paintings replicates the Greek ratio, which is typical of western art, hence our standard sizes of 9×12, 16×20, 24×36, etc…