Chinese Painting

Top: Du Zhenglin and our group: Top row: Forrest, Jeff, Parker, Prof. Du, Vicky, Ashley, Erik, Sean; Middle row: Judy, Jackie. Bottom row: Natalia, Jim, Tim, Aaron. We're standing in front of one of Prof. Du's paintings.

Next photo: Prof. Du and the quickly-painted crabs

We had our first session last night with Du Zhenglin, an artist and art professor at Beiwei, who holds a number of other titles, including Director of the China Painters and Calligraphers Association and President of the BFSU Painting and Calligraphy Association. He only speaks a little English, and only three of our students have had a year of Chinese. (The rest of us are beginners.) We managed to figure out most of what he was demonstrating, including showing us the different brushes used in Chinese painting. We watched as he expertly used a few strokes in black watercolor to paint crabs scuttling along underwater. We walked with him around the campus in the dark as he pointed out examples of calligraphy he had designed for the University, including the characters on many of the buildings and the entrance to the East Campus. He took us to an art exhibition on our side of the campus produced by students, faculty, and retired faculty, recruiting an English-speaking student to translate. When we stopped at his office he handed out lovely brochures featuring examples of his work, and we recognized a group photo from the back inside cover: Heather Coon and some of her students who were at Beiwei two years ago! Today we're going back to his classroom - to paint!