Make a print for your pet

Manager : Liu Mai

Studio : Sanmu Art Studio

Age Group : 12 years and above

Course Overview : Choose your favorite pet photo, design, compose, and carve it on a wooden board, and then make it into a woodblock print through printing.

Fee includes : engraving and framing of your pet woodblock print, and you can take the finished work home.

Key skills : design, composition, engraving, printing

Duration : 4 hours

Location : Yungong Kaiwu, Zhonghe Village

Pets are our little joys in life, silently accompanying us through every lonely moment. Now, let's use art to retain this warmth. Under the guidance of Liu Mai, a teacher at Sanmu Art Studio, you will create a woodcut print for your furry friend to retain love in an eternal form.

Teacher Liu Mai will start from the most basic and take you to explore the mysteries of printmaking, from composition to techniques, from using engraving tools to mixing inks. Every step is full of the fun of exploration.

This is not only an artistic creation, but also a dialogue of the soul. Through the collision of chisel and wood, you can feel the deep emotions between you and your pet, and let these memories become the softest corner of your heart.

This is a special journey that allows us to travel through time with woodblock prints, reunite with our beloved pets in the palace of art, and leave an eternal mark of love for our beloved pets.

Further reading: The origin and development of woodblock printing

Woodblock printing originated from printing, and it can be said that printing is the "root" of woodblock printing. Printing may seem like a pure technology, but its contribution to the art industry is enormous. Printmaking developed with the invention of printing, and modern printing technology has enriched this ancient art form. Therefore, printmaking perfectly combines the artistry and technology of printing, and is a typical representative of painting art.

Buddhism also provided an opportunity for the spread of printing. The earliest Buddhist woodcut illustrations came from the Diamond Sutra. In Chinese culture, the Diamond Sutra is a far-reaching Buddhist scripture with a history of more than a thousand years. Many people have gained enlightenment through its practice. The Diamond Sutra is a unique classic among Buddhist scriptures, transcending the boundaries of all religions and encompassing everything. In the Diamond Sutra woodcuts, many gods and Buddhas are portrayed vividly, and every line of the Buddha statue is very smooth and the shape is very vivid.

Woodblock printing continued to develop and reached its golden age in the Song Dynasty. Woodcut illustrations of books in the Song Dynasty occupy an important position in the history of Chinese woodcut prints. Although woodcut illustrations of books did not originate in the Song Dynasty, they developed maturely and perfected in the Song Dynasty. Most of the woodcut illustrations of books in the Song Dynasty were directly taken from life. From the perspective of recording, the woodcut illustrations of books in the Song Dynasty clearly restore a real Song Dynasty for us, allowing us to have a deeper understanding of the social life customs, social outlook, economic development level, and scientific and technological and cultural development level of the Song Dynasty. Therefore, the woodcut illustrations of books in the Song Dynasty also have certain research value in terms of history and culture.

In addition to being mainly reflected in book illustrations, the Song Dynasty also reflects the customs and habits of people's polytheism, such as the Song people's worship of "door gods", which also played a certain role in promoting the development of woodcut prints.

Horses and other things that are popular in many places in Yunnan are also folk variations of woodcut prints.

Until the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the main representative of woodblock prints was New Year pictures, which were mainly distributed in Kaifeng, Zhuxian Town and its surrounding areas, as well as Yangliuqing in Tianjin, Taohuawu in Suzhou, Weifang in Shandong and other places. The characteristics of New Year pictures are that the colors are rich and not easy to fade, the contrast is strong, the generalization is strong, the composition uses traditional techniques, there are works handed down from generation to generation, the objects are obvious, the characters and scenes are cleverly arranged, showing the beauty of three-dimensional symmetry, the pictures are rich and lifelike. Woodblock New Year pictures are traditional Chinese folk art, based on woodblock prints, and also promote the development and promotion of woodblock prints.

refer to:

[1] Liu Xiang (Korea). Legends and Sequels of Ancient Women. China Bookstore, 2013-08-01.

[2] A brief discussion of polytheistic beliefs and customs in Song Dynasty woodblock prints.

[3] Baidu Library