A Chinese Painting Class at Guanren Community
By Xmenglish: Zhang Henan & Wu Jianhan
Photo credit: Guanren Community
A Chinese painting lesson was held at Guanren Community on the morning of Mar.23, attracting fifteen students from all over the world, including France, USA, Russia, South Korea, Malaysia and India.
The class was taught by Ye Yongquan, an energetic and humorous man. “Personal mobility is very strong in this class, because students come and leave. It is a challenge for the tutor to teach lessons that meet such different students’ levels and demands.” said Mr.Ye .
It is hard for a teacher who must not only make the new students understand, but also not to make the old students feel bored. However, he succeeded.
At the begging of the class, Ye gave a introduction to the pen. He said, the pen used in Chinese painting is a tool and one that contains the producer’s spirit as well. Also, the arrangement of objects around the artist has rules that should be respected serve so you keep the desk tidy. Ye taught the class how to use light ink and strong ink to draw with by showing three lines drawn in different ways. He asked the class how they felt about these three different lines and the students gave their opinions.
During practice session, everyone started to draw their own paintings according to Ye’s requirements to, “not focus on the shapes, but to focus on feeling the lines.” A Russian student drew an owl with the teacher's help. After Ye added a few lines, the owl came to life. Bailu, a French women who came with her new born baby, drew a few circle patterns with different kinds of lines. She intended to colour the whole picture after colouring the first half, nonetheless, tutor Ye said the other half should remain white in order to make it balanced.
Anita, an Indian women, though this was not her first class, still found it difficult to catch Ye’s meaning. “It really hard to understand the ideas of light and strength and how to find balance in the painting,” said Anita. A Korean student drew a painting of bicycles to express the current disorder of the public bikes.
Each piece of work illustrates different interpretations of Chinese painting from different cultures. The class was very relaxing and pleasant. Everyone enjoyed communicating and sharing with each other. The differences in languages were not a barrier for them.
Especially, Ye represented the Guanren Community and gave presents to Bailu, who is going to leave Xiamen in April. The presents were a set of postcards and a Chinese painting named “Lucky Place” specially created for her by Ye.
Afterwards, the class took a picture together in front of the paintings and sent best wishes to Bailu.