Chinese New Year Art "Nian Hua'r"
Tuesday, February 10, 2009



Art specifically to buy during chinese new year. at the Ditan Park Temple fair my friend Zizzo really wanted to buy what was in these bags, i had no idea what it was he just said if we all buy 4 total they will give it to us cheaper so i said ok. each bag ended up being 25 rmb. I didn't get to see what was inside until the week later and boy was I pleasantly surprised!


It turns out that it is "Nian Hua'r", Chinese/Lunar New Year Art. This whole package is pretty cool starting with the screen printed bag and next this "doorway" container.

these go on the sides of your door


these 4 guys with the red backgrounds are the 4 big gods of Chinese Buddhism, they don't have them in tibetian or other buddism. All this info is coming from Angel who is a wealth of information when it comes to this kind of stuff

This is the Ghost catcher god. Angel says there are usually captured ghosts under his feet

at the top of this thing is the old school 24 period calendar instead of 12 months.

don't know who these guys are but this guy is holding "longevity peaches" which are probably good to eat in the new year or something. Also my friend Jia jia calls me a longevity peach when i drink because i get rosy red and i have a huge head

here it is in action on my roomates door.


Illustration Magazine i got in Korea

Posted byJason Raish at 2:12 PM 0 comments  

China National Gallery Part 1
Thursday, February 05, 2009

I went to to go buy art supplies. All the stores in Beijing are pretty much across the street from the China National Gallery. I was meeting Angel and was late so she went to the museum. I had a deadline but I still had never gone and it's a shame so i said whatever I'm gonna go. And boy was I pleasantly surprised. Not only are there tons of awesome chinese painters from the "western school of painting" there of course were awesome chinese paintings as well. theres a lot so here is is in 2 parts.



directly across the street from here is where all the art stores in Beijing are. Also this is where My Aunt pointed out this tall skinny beautiful bohemian artist looking woman and bob took a picture of her and his flash went off and she turned around and stormed over to him and demanded he delete it in perfect english. hahahaah


my camera is so suck. it can't capture the correct colors and has wicked barreling so 4 ft paintings are warped, look at the frames.

all of these were from what seemed like the western style floor. now what famous american illustrator does this look like?


amazing blues ruined by my camera

in the middle is mao. on the right is deng xiao ping Angel thinks. i guess the close up i took will be in the second part, oops. Anyway Angel says she hates mao but that he is still a "great man". i said what! and she said yea he is one of the men who really changed history. we both agreed changed for the worse but she also said he was a great poet and a few other things as well making me think that she and other young people still think it was somewhat good/important/not a total jerk.

crazy water color


crazy fold details in this traditional painting.


doesn't this look like one of these female illustrators style, like Jessie Wilcox Smith i'm thinking maybe?


Angel didn't notice the wall of topless and unrealistically endowed women dancing in the background but that is the first thing i noticed! this is in Xinjian province, the Muslim minority province in western china.


this was a smaller painting, and this frame accented it so well! and then my camera destroyed that nice little harmony.

i need to start getting the paint out again. look at those horses legs!

Posted byJason Raish at 6:52 AM 0 comments  

China National Gallery Part 2

Part 2 of the national gallery work. truely inspiring stuff. most of these are from the traditional chinese section.



here is the close up of mao. doesnt really look like him. oh yea angel said he was a great poet, writer, and modern calligraphy artist. but can we get back on track? i'm mad at this guy. he took away my Chinese New Year. Since the cultural revolution spread from beijing tons of the new year traditions are forgotten but survive in the south. so i didnt get any lion dances or dragon dances or wish trees. Mao. punch in the balls. Oh yea this is your chinese art lesson, this is one of 2 big styles. it's called "xie yi hua" xie yi painting. it is usually graphic with drawn lines unlike the other kind with black ink and brushes is called gong bi painting.


this scroll is awesome. they attach the painting afterwords.

this might have been my favorite in the whole place. not because i'm a weirdo 50 yr old housewife that has japonism fever but because i really appreciate "gong bi hua". this was huge and the details on the peacock were amazing. I guess i really love these kind of paintings because they are super expressive beacuse it uses quick spontaneous brush strokes that are obviously super skillful to express form, instead of using lines. you get the essence of the form, and they say that the human brain likes not having everything fleshed out, but likes when it has to fill in a little of the details by itself. So envious. if you see my work it is the opposite of this.


look at the details from the branches in the foreground!

wat a beaute!


i've said a couple times on this blog that there is almost no graffiti in Beijing. I actually saw this guy doing it outside the art store with a red marker! I wonder what happens if they catch you. I wonder if money will get you out of it. probably

Posted byJason Raish at 6:51 AM 0 comments  

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