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Jump on our first merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women as they link hands around the world and tell you a little about their lives in art and craft.
To me, it has to go back to my childhood I think. I was raised in a small mountain village in China's Zhejiang province by my grandmother. My parents were working in a small city in Ningbo. You can image how life was in an isolated small mountain village. I was as wild as I could. I raised a pig when I was just 4 years old. I still remember the smell of the sweet grass that I gathered for my pig. It was a very poor village, I vividly remember that my grandmother spend so much time to pick the rice from very dilated rice porridge for me and she only eat the watery rice soup.
But I was very happy and running around in the village, wild field and mountains. The village was beautiful and I sometime spend hours just looked though a small window and wondered what was there behind the beautiful mountains.
I moved to live with my parents when I was 5. My father believes in education very much and was very strict with me. He bought me various types of books. One of the pictorial books was with a cover of an 18 century oil painting of a little Spanish girl. She had such big and thoughtful eyes. I've never seen such beautiful eyes and totally moved even I was only 5.
Art was always with me. Although our house was very small, but the walls were filled with beautiful posters of birds, flower and Chinese paintings.
But I never thought I will become an artist. I graduated from the famous Zhejiang University majoring in science. I went to American and pursuing a high degree in Science as well. After that I was working in Singapore as university lecturer and researcher.
The idea of painting every day came when I moved to my new house. It is a dream house to me because it is spacious and near a beautiful beach and park with a beautiful garden. I was full of enthusiasm to decorate it beautifully. I searched many places in Singapore for paintings, but couldn't find one that I like. My friend reminded me why not I painted one myself. It struck me immediately. Ya, why not.
The first thought in my mind was that I want the beautiful paintings that I saw when I was a child in my walls. So I copied the famous Venus with some modification. It was very good to me. I was very pleased with the result and became bold. The second one was painted with photos of maple tree and a model of a girl.
I felt so satisfied with
with what I got. I wondered if I could continue to paint in some way, but not thought of doing it full-time. The surprising pregnancy of my little princess changed all that. She was too precious for us and I couldn't leave her to be taken care by someone else. Why not become a full time mother and paint as well. It was a very easy decision for me.It has been about 2 years since then. I was living in an artist dream everyday. Ya, life is beautiful. However, the journey isn't easy. The most difficult thing is to find the thing that you want to paint and paint in the way that you like and you want it to be. I am still searching the way I want.
What I want is something as beautiful as the eyes of the little Spanish girl that I saw first time. They makes impact on your life and you can spend your life look at them.
I still have today's painting. It is finished from yesterday's layout.