Painting fans in Fuli Town

Today we woke up bright and early due to the time change but that meant we got to sit on our wonderful porch before the night lanterns got turned off for the day.

And enjoy some coffee and listen to the quiet before the honking trucks and motor bikes began.

Today we had the privilege of visiting Fuli, an ancient town that is well known for its fans and beautiful landscape scroll paintings. Our guide Kevin (after his favorite American actor, Kevin Costner) told us Fuli is 1400 years old and his family has been living in the area since the Han Dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD). His family has been painting and passing down this artistry for generations.

Here are some fans drying that are waiting for their bamboo to be inserted. The fruit on them is lychee.

Here is Andrew faithfully painting his bamboo and flowers, which we practiced for probably 4 hours! Kevin's uncle was our instructor. The more we attempted ink painting the more we were impressed with his skills that made each stroke appear effortless.

 

Here is a beautiful ink painting in the traditional Chinese style. The skill it takes to do this is incredible. The number of strokes, textures and shades he was able to accomplish with one brush and one color was astonishing.

Above he is inserting bamboo spokes into my fan. It turns out I am horrible at painting mountains with ink on fans. Andrew's bamboo and flower fan turned out much better than my mountain fan. Below are some of huge fans - 1.5 meters wide- with intricate details.

During our adventure we were served lunch, which was a delicious family recipe over rice. Today was an amazing privilege. We felt very honored to meet this family and spend time in their studio. We picked out a scroll that was painted by Kevin's cousin, who is known for being the best in the area at painting mountains. The scroll we chose is a mixture of traditional Chinese and western style. I liked it because it showed the karst mountains and had my favorite colors.

 

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