This afternoon we visited the amazing art community of Songxianqiao in Chengdu.  While there were many antiques and craft shops what caught my attention were the many artists studios of all traditions.  We especially enjoyed meeting several oil painters who were so kind.  Most did not speak english but welcomed us in to their studios and somehow we communicated with them and had a wonderful afternoon. 

Kelsey has met this artist on a visit on the weekend and he was happy to see her again.  He invited us to sit down and he showed us many of his paintings and his listings in major shows and reviews of renowned artists.  He showed us his painting process and also showed us where a beautiful river and treefilled village he likes to paint is located an hour and a half south west of Chengdu.  We actually might go visit there if we have time next week when Kieran and Rob arrive. 

These artists can speak some English.  He showed us paintings he has done of Tibetan people as well as portraits of his mother and son.  His wife is a wonderful charcoal sketcher.  He is famous in Yunnan province where they lived for several years.  While we were there they were wrapping up artwork to send to Shanghai.  He showed us his oil paints and explained how he uses a nontoxic solvent for painting and linseed oil.  He  also uses soap and maybe citrus oil to clean his brushes.(Something I learned to do when I oil painted my house many years ago and couldn't tolerate the chemicals in terpentine).   Kind of like I used to do my oil paintings here.  Unfortunately I didn't know there was an art store at this artist village that I could have bought some of the nontoxic citrus solvent and some real non-additive linseed oil which apparently helps paint dry quicker.  He uses the citrus stuff to thin the paint for the underglaze and linseed oil for overcoats.

Here are some of the other artists we met--they were so kind!

Can't believe it is the last day of Kelsey's teaching practicum at the Lonjiang Middle Road Elementary School in Chengdu China.  She has had a wonderful experience working in the classroom of all of the 1200 students.  She has had the most fantastic teacher mentors who have modelled fantastic classroom teaching styles.  Kelsey started off as quite a shy newby.  Today I was lucky enough to be allowed to observe her last classes and I was so amazed at what a dynamic, enthusiastic, outgoing teacher she has become.  She has managed to develop exciting lesson plans that are thoroughly enjoyed by the students.  She has found ways to engage the children and I can see how much they adore her!  What a perfect experience to the start of her teaching life that she has gotten here in China. While Kelsey is sad that her time with the students is over, she is also kind of excited to be on the start of her summer break!  Congratulations Kelsey and thank you to Luis, head of the english language department and teacher mentors Luis and Casey!  I am so lucky that Kelsey allowed me to accompany her during her time here--what a perfect excuse to have the past 6 weeks to paint!

Spent the day finishing up the painting we started en plein air on Monday.  The acrylic of the Bronze Urn of Lotus Blossoms located on Kuan Street at Big and Little Alley, Chengdu China  is 12x16 inches.

After spending a very low keyed weekend sniffling in my room with a cold we decided to head out to paint at Big and Little Alley in downtown Chengdu. We wanted to see how lightweight we could make our backpack to see how little I could get away with taking to paint on the trip later when we are travelling.

First we scouted out the wonderful streets and took photos. It is a very busy place and so we were looking for an unobtrusive spot with a nice scene to paint.Atlast Kelsey spotted a very sheltered little corner at the front of a tea house with the view of the old doorway and big pots with lotus blossoms. It was ideal. We could sit tucked away
in the back and paint. It would be quite difficult for people to get around us to snoop because we were in a tight corner and most people wouldn't even notice us there as we put our paints and water and brushes down on a chair. With boards on our laps, not easels, we were hidden by our lovely table with a tablecloth. It was great and we worked away for a few hours.

I think that we mainly only attracted a small bit of attention due to our hair colour and so we had our pictures taken a few times.

Matt Vegh, a Canadian who has lived in Chengdu for 12 years spotted us and came to talk with us, delighted to find we were fellow Canadians. He's from Toronto. He was helped open an English language business school in Chengdu and taught at universities all over China. He has written family friendly comic books (he has a great Chinese illustrator), has published a magazine, tourist brochures, story books, and has an animation studio where he has converted his comics to videos and e-books. He is presently writing a feature length film using his many comic characters. After he found out about the networking aspect of my website www.WorldArtTours.net and how I am working to create connections between artists and communities around the world to improve cultural life in the general population he asked us if we would like for him to see if we could attend a Canadian  Business Consulate dinner at a nearby restaurant.

There was a delegation from Ontario that were being brought out to Chengdu by the Canadian Consulate Business Division in Chongqing that were meeting for dinner with the Chengdu business consulate branch. What an interesting night!  Mayor David Craig    of Cambridge Ontario is a big supporter of the arts and a former elementary school teacher.  

Kelsey really enjoyed talking with Catharine who has just graduated in urban planning and Nick who is the president of the Student Union of Sir Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo who were with the group.

Sherry, one of our lovely Chinese friends had bought us tickets to attend the amazing broadway musical style stage production of JinSha. It is based on the historical excavations near

Chengdu where they have found a human settlement from 3,000 years ago. When the show started I said to Kelsey well I guess we won't be able to take pictures of this one just as a sign went up and said No Cameras--but then I saw it continued--No Cameras With Flashes.  Wow--only in China.  We can take photos of the show!

At a local Chengdu archeological dig they found a gold mask and some sort of fire and pheonix symbols and so this major production was
put together and has been presented at the Chengdu museum site in a lovely theatre built 2 years ago.

It is a powerful love story filled with battles, lights, falling flower petals, waterscreens, and flower fairies, lights, acrobats, face changers, and flame breathers. It was an exciting show and anyone visiting Chengdu shouldn't miss it.

Tickets are around $30 each but well worth it--the same on Broadway in New York would be well over $150 and it is so unique in that it attempts to explore local history in a fantastical way!

Daughter Kelsy was inspired to paint the battlescene in acrylics.

I decided to be brave and venture out to paint without Kelsey's company. Usually it is nice to have another partner in crime because in China there are so many people and invariably when you are out painting people congregate. We find it a little unnerving to be under so much public scrutiny. People at home tend to be alot more inhibited about disturbing artists at work.  I guess here in China people are used to very little personal space and think nothing of privacy because they are used to living in such crowded quarters--which I must admit has its advantages.  There is always someone around who would like to play a game of mahjong or sit with you and drink a cup of tea!

We also attract attention in this area as there are so few foreigners and I have light coloured hair (mostly fake these days) and people are amazed at Kelsey's blue eyes.

So I ventured to the east of our hotel along the river. I found a spot that had very little foot traffic behind some of those blue construction barriers. I figured I would be able to hid back there and I could get a view of the Nanjing Bridge over the river that has the Marco Polo Restaurant and is lit up so beautifully at night. I set to work and wouldn't you know it--construction barrier and all I still got found. A couple of groups of guys came over while I was working and continued to try to converse with me even though it was totally clear I couldn't speak or understand Chinese. Unfortunately they also had to touch my stuff, fiddle with my camera, and they were all constantly smoking and I had to gesture to get them to finally back off when I couldn't stand the fumes. After what seemed like some curious comments--not sure if they liked what I was doing and a few thumbs up of approval, it was threatening a wind and rain storm. I was also working on a wicked sore throat and headache and decided I'd better get home before their was a downpour and I caught pneumonia

In the Chongqing China Rail station

In the morning Tommy had arranged for us to take a tour of Sichuan Art Institute's beautiful new campus, almost an hour's drive out of the centre of Chongqing.  The niece of one of his printmaking collegues worked at the school teaching English and also in administration. Apparently there is an American student here.  She took us on a tour of the fantastic gardens and ponds and then we visited the oil painting, traditional painting and printmaking department.

It was great seeing the students working en plein air painting live models. Kelsey was definitely intrigued and yet again inspired to paint and wondering how she can arrange her future to include a year at the Chinese Foreign Language University learning Chinese, a year in France learning french, time to study painting in China, time to teach and work in China and a few years ago at the Sichuan University Art Institute studying painting. Sounds like she's got an interesting and busy life in front of her!

After the long drive back from the art school another delicious Chinese banquet lunch was yet again hosted by Mr. Song.  He refuses to let us pick up a bill.  Then we wandered around the downtown pedestrian mall. We ate dinner(did in their food court which consisted of a huge number of kitchens that had many many selections of so many dishes it was hard to chose. Not your typical fast food mall foodcourt like you'd find in Canada. There was an amazing range and variety of vegetables and tofu even to chose from and not a burger in sight! We love the huge variety and availability of vegetables in restaurants here in China--no wonder they've typically been healthier than people in the west. Then it was off to the rail station to catch our return highspeed train back to Chengdu.

We were so fortunate to have Mr. Song at our disposal. He drove us out to the South Hotspring Chongqing so we could paint. We were looking for a scene of a local waterfall that I had
seen in photos on the internet. Alas we found the waterfall site but there was no water. They seem to be in a draught and the spring above was dry. There was also a pagoda
with a waterfall that I had seen and was hoping to paint.

Mr.Song did find the pagoda for us at a resort at the Hotspring but again the waterfall was dry. I did improvise and used some
artistic liscence and painted in the water. We enjoyed a lovely morning painting especially thanks to the portable picnic table and umbrella that Mr. Song brought along and set up for us.  Here is the completed watercolour--I used artistic liscence and added the water.

After another wonderful Chinese banquet at the resort we headed back to the city.

The plan for tonight would be a cruise on the Yangtze River after we have dinner. 

We were so fortunate that our hotel, the Somerset Jiefangbei was in the best central location right downtown.  After we arrived and got checked in we went out for lunch in a mall under the street right by our hotel.

Luckily the restaurant was airconditioned.  We had all worked up an appetite and ordered a fairly extensive lunch with fruit smoothies like bubble tea and we even thought we should each have a bowl of soup--almost everyone has soup with all of their meals here.  Normally you get a small single serving size and the gal did comment that we ordered a fair amount of food--she neglected to tell us that we had ordered 4 table size bowls of soup, one for each of us.  Oh dear!

We were able to walk out in the late afternoon and were just a block from the Huangya Cave and it's local crafts shops and restaurants

After a visit Haungya we met up with Tina's cousin Mr.Song and his daughter ZhaZha. He had kindly agreed to show us around while we were there. What a kind fellow and wow, talk about Chinese hospitality!
He picked us up in his airconditioned Mercedes (very nice in this heat) and then drove us to the classiest vegan restaurant we have ever eaten in. The decor had a very sophisticated environmental theme using many natural material elements such as wood and stone. The food was delicious and so beautifully presented using many organic materials for decoration, such as leaves, rocks as chopstick rests and many flowers decorating our food plates. What a pleasant meal. At dinner we found out that Mr. Song had in his life been a musician in a traditional Chinese orchestra and played the erhu, my favorite two stringed instrument. He had also written a major musical production about a buddhist story featuring animals--perhaps this is why he is so knowledgeable about the local vegan restaurant! A very multifaceted talented person.

As if we haven't seen and done enough today we were whisked off (however at a very modest and safe speed--Mr.Song is the only driver we met who actually drives slowly and

carefully, allowing other cars to merge and waiting on pedestrians) after dinner to the shores of the Yangtze River for an evening cruise to see the night lights of Chongqing. It was wonderful and we got so many incredible pictures. The skyline and shore were covered with the most amazing selection of changing lights that ranged from some very very long tailed lit-up kites,

and riverside changing light displays, moving lights covering entire sides of buildings, movies showing on the side of 50 or more storey buildings and on  the massive Performing Arts Centre next to the amazing Blue Globe of the Museum of Science and technology.

We enjoyed a drink of our favourite medicinal herbal iced tea Wang Lao Ji and had a wonderful night! Thank you Mr. Song!