Back to Art School!

Last Sunday I was invited to lunch at the home of one of my students. While I was there, his mother told him to show me his calligraphy skills. It was cute to see how excited he was to show off.

The images above are sampler of Chinese Calligraphy that he made as a gift for me. I was so impressed by how quickly he finished the whole thing. I think it really only took about half an hour. They said he has been studying Chinese Calligraphy for four years. He also is learning how to paint with ink on tissue thin paper, in the traditional Chinese style. While he was telling me about this, his mother, Mrs. Feng, called his art teacher, Mr. Yang, and invited him over to meet me. He is an artist that runs an art school where Mrs. Feng teaches traditional Chinese poetry. Mr. Yan came over and demonstrated how to paint in a traditional Chinese way.

He used a large calligraphy brush and worked very quickly, moving with sure and confident brush strokes to create an image of bamboo. He wrote my name in it next to some Chinese Characters and told me that they said that this painting was made for me. Then he signed his name, beneath that he wrote the characters for the season, autumn, and the year.

He used a special red paint to to stamp his seal onto the painting beneath his name and the date.

After he finished my lovely new painting, he invited me to come to his art school and he would show me how to paint in the Chinese style. Mrs. Feng had told him that I studied art in college, and he thought it might be interesting for me. I happily agreed and after lunch we all hoped on a bus to visit the art school. Once we got there he showed me some of the student’s work, and then he showed me some of his paintings, which were so breathtaking, the pictures below do not do them justice.

They are done with ink on paper that is tissue thin. They are so delicate and beautiful, I cannot image working with such delicate materials! Mr. Yang decided that I should be introduced to these mediums, and had me join a beginner’s class for the evening…a beginner’s class for five year olds.

Our subject was a bearded dragon, I think we captured him quite nicely!

These were all of the student’s paintings, pinned up for critique!

My classmates gave me a very positive critique. 😉

All-in-all is was a perfectly lovely day. I met so many lovely people, was given demonstrations of a new, to me, art, and I even got to try my hand at it. They left an open invitation to visit the school as often as I like. I am sure that I will take them up on it.