Dragon Pillar

Name: Dragon Pillar
Materials: Silver, Black Sandal
Size: 260*260*470mm (limited in 99 pieces);180*180*320mm(limited in 999 pieces); 150*150*260mm(limited in 1999 pieces)
Introduction: It is an imitation for the original of “Dragon Pillar” which from Taihe palace of the Forbidden City. Perfect silver carving techniques that made the vivid of flying dragon and the black sandal carving techniques made the prefect design of four guardian ancient beasts.

Wealth and Wishing Vase

Name: Wealth and Wishing Vase
Materials: Silver, sandal frame
Size: 205*138*500mm
Introduction: It is an imitation for the original of Qing Stone of Green Glaze Open-work basket, which has flying dragons and 24 gold rings surround it that implying the 12 zodiacs, 12 hours, 12 months and 24 solar terms. It is ingot-shape of mouth filled with full of treasures, hanging by 2 gold chains.

Zhuhai Big Parade in Dragon Year

Yesterday, the 8th Zhuhai Folk Arts parade was held in Jinan town of China, which attracted more than 80 thousands citizens to watch. In the teams of this parade, there was an absolutely highlight that by six different forms and shapes dragons which flying in the sky, where the dragon arrived that the people in competing to touch it for have a good sign of next year. In this parade, which was including a number of folk arts with local features. There are over 600 performers participate in this grand parade.

Paper Carving Artist Creates 108 Dragons Pattern Artwork

Mr.Wang Liming lives in Jiangdong street of Donglin district,Shenyang Province, who is a famous paper-carving artist with his supreme technique of carving on the paper. On the 20th of January, he has showed us an item called <<Dragon Picture>> which has been taken over 1 year to carve by 60cm heigh and 30m width.

The <<Dragon Picture>> contains 108 dragons with different shapes and looks, some in spitting fog and some in rolling up. The biggest size is reached in several metres and the smallest is only as small as a coin. "I'd like to celebrate the dragon new year with the art of paper carving! "

Now he is a member of Chinese folk arts artist association. He loves to drawing and painting when he was a child. In 1992, he joined the army and became the cadre of promotion in the team that according to his talents and had been gained many rewards.

In 1994, a failure drawing work made the good-at-drawing who felt sad, a sudden idea was coming into his mind, then he was picking up the scissors to carve on his failure drawing. It couldn't imaged that the failure drawing had being turned to a perfect paper carving after some carving handle by him. Since then, he had begun to the road of paper carving creation.

Talking about the paper carving, it might not so strange to people but few to fully understand it. Paper carving is using the way of carving to draw on the Self-adhesive paper. This art form has not only the flavour of "paper", but also the flavour of "knife".

At the earliest period of 2001, Mr.Wang had been taken one and half year to create the work of <<ALONG THE RIVER DURING CHING MING FESTIVAL>> which width by 9 metres . His work <<Chinese Souls>> which width by 2 metres and 1.2 metre height was created for the Si Yuan Hui.

Jiutai City Paper Cutting Master Lead His Relatives to Global

Paper cutting master,Mr.Wangting

A 64-year old man Wangting could not imagine that a scissor has changed his whole life, and changed his families as well. The title of "Paper Cutting Master" was given by the old man because of his successful in the arts of Chinese traditional paper-cutting, who was even praised by many foreigners and was named "skill man". Apart from gaining the awards from home and aboard, the old man was paying more attention to the development and inheritance of the Chinese traditional arts-paper cutting.

Wearing the red coat with a dragon parttern

On the 16th of January, the reporter was visiting Mr.Wangting's home in Jiutai City. The old man noticed that there will be a visitor coming and happily wore the red coat. "the new year is coming, it shall be celebrating!" said the old man. He randomly found out a red sheet of paper and began to cut with the scissor, after a while, a dragon pattern that exactly matched the theme of 2012 Chinese lunar dragon year, which was being showed in front of the reporter.

Comic Enlightening his Arts

Talking about the paper cutting, which was recall his memories in his childhoods. "I like reading comic when I was a child. Because of the attracting graphic in the comic, I like drawing gradually. Since my family was poor in that time, so I even can not afford a piece of paper. I only draw on the textbook, on window paper, on news paper that pasting on the wall, and on the discarding cardboard. Only thing which has a little connection with the paper, all have left my drawing.", the old man said. He joined the army and had met a man who has a great talent. He tried to do a lot of help for the man in order to learn from him. Finally, he had been gained a great knowledge about arts from that man, which was a good servant for his career in paper cutting. 

Fancy in Paper Cutting

He was going home after the 8-year of military life. At first, he was being a team leader of a village militia, then he went to the cultural station in his county. "I started to do the paper cutting when I entered the cultural station. I was always thinking about how to make a good paper-cutting in my whole spare time. The figures from All Men Are Brothers, the Three Kingdoms that I had read are all come to my mind, I took 5 or 6 hours to cut with my scissor."

The first lantern and plum blossom lantern festival will be held in Guangdong

The first Lantern Culture and the third Plum Blossom Lantern Festival will be held by institutes that from Guangdong government and Dongguan government on the 4th-6th of Feb.2012.

The organizer has been received a lot of lantern samples that from different cities in Guangdong province, the 16 representatives which are including Guangzhou, Panyu, Hongmei, Nanhai, Shunde, Xinhui, Lianping, Lufeng, Lianjiang, Longmen, Zhaozhou, Xingning and Meixian city. There are 3 highlights which are the "bright themes", "diversity of lanterns" and the "rich content".

Creating pottery a quiet pastime

With music, television, computer games and other things competing for our attention, creating a piece of handmade pottery is a quiet way of spending your leisure time, which leaves you with a greater sense of accomplishment than most pastimes.

Pottery making is one of the oldest art forms in the world. There is a long history of pottery production in almost all developed cultures, and some vanished cultures left nothing behind but their pottery.

Cultures especially noted for fine pottery include the Chinese, Cretan, Greek, Persian, Mayan, Japanese, and Korean cultures, as well as modern Western cultures.

Elements of pottery art, upon which different degrees of emphasis have been placed at different times, include shape, decoration by painting, carving and glazing.

It is not dependent on any age group or artistic background. Different forms of pottery art, such as ceramic art, are used to create stoneware, earthenware, and porcelain.

Creating handmade pottery has many advantages over simply buying pottery.

Handmade pottery is neither mass-produced nor characterless. You have the power to make it different to an ordinary plate, bowl or cup.

Making pottery at home is popular with housewives in Europe and Japan, as most people are wealthy enough to have the equipment.

In China, there are shops that offer a pottery-making experience.

In Shenzhen Book City CBD store in Futian District, there is a shop with a wide range of materials for handmade pottery.

It is great fun to create your work of art. Before you sit in front of the wheel, just pick a slab of clay and wait for it to become hard enough. Then, an instructor can help you make the clay into a decorative item such as a leaf, a bunch of grapes, a rabbit or a monkey or something more practical such as a vase, a cup, or a plate. To make it more beautiful, you can carve whatever patterns you like or even hollow-out patterns.

The semi-finished items need to be left to dry for about 10 days. The instructor will then make small adjustments to your piece to raise it to a professional standard. Finally, your pottery will be heated in an oven at about 1,300 degrees Celsius.

"Pottery making gave me a form of self-expression", said a customer identified as Zeng, "and I also enjoy the anticipation of seeing the finished product."

"You never know whether it will be successful until you take it out of the oven," said Zeng.

"But the sense of accomplishment at creating a successful work is incomparable."

Every work of handmade pottery is unique. Even if you paint the same design using the same color, the temperature in the oven and the time in the oven will alter the appearance of the finished work.

Handmade pottery shops have a relaxed environment and provide tea or coffee to drink while you work on your masterpiece.

The price of making one item of pottery is 98 RMB (12 USD). A package offer is 680 RMB per 10 items. Advanced lessons are also offered at 1,680 RMB per 10 classes. Pottery making is also a good hobby for children. So why not spend a day in one of the shops with your family?

In Youth Activities Center, there is a handmade pottery shop frequented by children. The price is 35 RMB per 90 minutes. 

Add: N231, North Area, Shenzhen Book City CBD store, Futian District

Thread of continuity

Wei Taohua, 40, of the Shui ethnic group from Guizhou province, demonstrates her horsetail embroidery skills at an art exhibition of Guizhou handicrafts in Beijing.

Horsetail embroidery is a specialty of the Miao and Shui ethnic groups in Guizhou province. Zhang Yue reports.
Wei Taohua, a 40-year-old villager of Guizhou province, sings a folk tune as she sews on a dark blue cotton batik mat. Curious visitors watch as she works. It takes just 30 minutes for the butterfly to take shape.
A closer inspection of the work shows the image has been stitched with horsetail hair, rather than cotton thread.
"I have been doing this all my life," Wei says. "There is no need to paint, draft or even think about the next image. It just comes to my mind as I hold the needle."
Wei is demonstrating her skills at an art exhibition of Guizhou province's handicrafts in Beijing. She and her family represent the handicraft known as "horsetail embroidery".
"This shoe-pad is so exquisite that I will not put it in my shoes," Li Huatian, who bought a pair from Wei during the exhibition on Saturday, says. "I will hang it in my home as a decoration."
Wei says, "I learned this from my mom when I was 13. So did my other five sisters. I did not know how the ideas came to my mothers' mind, but I watched her create many interesting images with a needle and horsetail threads, which was very appealing."
Scenes of nature viewed during childhood inspire Wei and her sisters to come up with images for their own embroidery works.
"We seldom repeat the images," Wei says. "They're a flexible combination of images showing our love of life and nature."
Horsetail embroidery requires three or four horsetail hairs bound together with white cotton, after which the image's shape is delineated. Then the images are filled with silk threads of different colors.
The most popular horsetail embroidery products include tablemats, shoe-pads and wallets. Some wallets take more than one month to finish and fetch up to 1,300 yuan ($205) each.
Wei belongs to the Shui ethnic group, most of which lives in Guizhou province. Both the Miao and Shui ethnic groups in Guizhou have a long and rich history of embroidery. Many women, like Wei, can read and write only with difficulty, but their embroideries are an important way for them to express their feelings.
"Almost all the girls in my home village begin learning embroidery at about 5 or 6 years old," Wei says. "Some of them spend 10 years on a single embroidery piece, which is specially prepared for their wedding."
Wei, who did not finish primary school because her parents did not have the money, says she never expected to become famous.
But in 2006, her horsetail embroidery was included in the national intangible cultural heritage list. This year, she and some other Guizhou needlewomen took their embroideries overseas, when they participated in the Chinese Culture Year in Italy. They spent two weeks demonstrating their embroidery in Milan, Florence and Rome.
"It was my first time to go abroad," Wei says. "People in Italy loved our embroidery so much. I could not understand a word of what they were saying, but I could tell the excitement from their faces when they held the shoe-pad I made."
Other needlework stars include Liu Zhengfen, a 41-year-old woman from the Miao ethnic group, who is famed for sewing with extremely slender silk threads, a representative folk art of the Miao ethnic group. Her embroidery sells up to 10,000 yuan ($1,580) a piece.
Many women in surrounding villages have come to Wei to learn about horsetail embroidery since 2006. Wei and her sisters run a shop in Guizhou's Shandu county and earn 30,000 yuan a month in total.
Wei has three sons but no daughter, so she is teaching her eldest daughter-in-law about the handicraft.
"I have only one son, but the sewing tradition is only passed down to women," Liu says. "So my son is not learning the skill. But I do teach a class of 50 girls about folk arts."
Wei says, "My son and daughter-in-law's generation learn most of their knowledge from school. But I want them to know about how we represent our culture and our love for life. She is enjoying learning very much." 

Liu Zhengfen, from the Miao ethnic group, is known for sewing with extremely slender silk threads.

 (China Daily 12/28/2011 page20)

Chinese oil painting master Situ Jin

Artist Profile:

Mr. Situ Jin graduated from Guangzhou Arts College and gained both of the bachelor and master degree in 1981. He went to U.S. for study in 1987 and later moved to Canada, final setteled in U.S. in 1988. 

Resent rewards:

Gain a prize of U.S. Westen Artist Exhibition in 2005.

Gain Thomas Moran Memorial Award, Collector Prize in 2004.

Gain Thomas Moran Memorial Award, Artist and Collector Prize in 2003.

Gain Thomas Moran Memorial Award, U.S. Western Master and Collector Prize in 2002.

......

Oil painting by Mr. Situ Jin

Chinese painter introduction, Mr.Jin Shangyi

Mr.Jin Shangyi, the famous painter in China, who was born in Jiaozuo county, Henan province in 1934. He studied at Beiping National Arts College in 1949 and was taught by professor Sun Zhongwei, Li zhongzhe, Dong Xiwen, Wu Zuoren etc. He was majoring in sketch, line-drawing and watercolor. After his graduated work finished in 1952, he continued to stay at college for the master degree of Oil painting. In 1955, he paticipated in the training class held by Ma (Russia painter).