In September
2012 I journeyed back to China for my 7th time to plein air paint and visit my daughter who
is teaching
in china. It really helps that she is an avid painter
and was happy to accompany me for a short break to Sichuan
province to the beautiful historic village of Shangli,
not far from Ya'an and very close to Bifengxia with its
pandas and wonderful canyon and world's highest scenic tourist
elevator to a wonderful canyon. I will be returning there
this
spring to paint as well.We
had a
l
ovely afternoon along the river by the historic bridge.
Each of us painted a different view. We met up with my dear friend Prof. Tommy Wu and his wife at their home in Music
Gardens, a suburb of Chengdu. We had a lovely visit with them and
returned to the neat tourist town of Huanglongxi.
Many artists
and students go to the historic village of
Shangli to paint. There was a large group of students there when
we were there.
Here is my setup when I am painting back at Nanshan Temple in
Wuxi. Kelsey's holiday wa
s
over and they were back to work. I was lucky and got to return to
"work" painting! I got to enjoy more
great
lights along the canal at one of its many fine bridges.
I will also return to the Phoenix Private Art Museum to check out their
display of wonderful
contemporary Chinese artwork and
will also be be looking to se
e
if they have completed the
neighbouring artist' studios. I am hoping that one day I might
visit and paint here. I was
told
to check it out by the Staff at the Phoenix art Company where I met the
head product designer and an assistant who spoke English. She
gave me wonderful
tour of the magnificent private collection of contemporary art at the
factory. The Phoenix Art Supply company is the
2nd largest art company in the world. The staff
were
curious as to why I came to China to paint.
They were surprised
to hea
r
that I had travelled to Beijing originally in 1987 and
through
the kind assistance of
Prof. Wu had
studied privately at
the
Central
Academy of Fine Arts with a few renowned artists
Prof.
Wei and
Yang
Feiyun, who is now one of the top selling Chinese Contemporary
artists according to Sotheby's Auction House. He had just
recently been in Wuxi for the opening of the Phoenix Art Museum.
I was very fortunate
Mr.
Yang painted a lovely oil portrait of me back in 1987.
The
staff were amazed that I had artwork by him. I also have a lovely
watercolour of his wife Pengpeng. She was often a subject in his
oil
paintings and modeled in my class. Back in 1987 I was really
disappointed I had to cancel
out on a visit that I had arranged for famous American actor
Gregory
Peck to meet with these wonderful artists.I met Mr.Peck at lunch
one
day in the fall of '87 at the new Great Wall Sheraton Hotel when he
travelled to China for the Education Film festival..
Unfortunately I had to cancel our appointment because in those days you
couldn't easily make travel arrangements and my train was booked to
Qingdao and my ship was sailing for Shanghai during the only time when
Mr. Peck could come. That story will have to be subject to
another post along with pictures of Yang Feiyan's wonderful work that
he had me take as he was hoping that I could help him market his work
in North America--now Sotheby's is doing a fine job of that!.
