3 Toed Dragon on Garden Wall , YuYuan Garden Shanghai watercolor b Meera Rao
YuYuan gardens in Shanghai is over 400 years old. It is located near the Tourist mart and City God Temple in Old Shanghai. The Breath taking gardens, elegant buildings, koi ponds etc are an oasis of beauty and calm ! It took Pan Yunduan, a minister in Ming Dynasty 18 odd years to build and he designed it as a place for his parents to enjoy in their retirement. The legend goes that the Emperor was jealous of the beauty of the gardens, and especially of the dragons that graced the walls since dragons were the symbols exclusively belonging to Royalty. He sent an agent to check it out and may be confiscate the garden but Pan Yunduan managed to convince him that the garden dragons had only 3 toes and were not the perfect four toed royal dragons. He apparently broke the fourth toes on the garden dragons just before the agent's arrival !
Moon Gate, YuYuan Gardens, Shanghai Ink and watercolor by Meera Rao
Jade Rock Natural Sculptures, Yuyuan Gardens, Shanghai #directwatercolor #nosketching by Meera Rao
Fengsheng Bridge Zhujiajio Watertown Watercolor (2 page spread) by Meera Rao
Zhujiajiao, Water Town situated about 50 kilometers away from Shanghai is worth the drive. 1700 years old Watertown in Qingpu District, south of the Yangtze River, Zhujiajiao, is known as “The Venice of China” It features lovely waterways, curved rock bridges, old streets paved with stone, and over 10,000 buildings dating back to the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing dynasties (1644-1911). We took a leisurely ride in one of the old style boats with a boatman with a old fashioned cone hat :) Look for a proper painting of the boatman in a future post. It just was juried into the Virginia Artists show at Hampton VA!
Fengsheng Bridge Zhujiajiao Watertown Watercolor by Meera Rao
Fengsheng Bridge Zhujiajiao Watertown Watercolor by Meera Rao
Yuanjin Buddhist Shrine #directwatercolor, #nosketching by Meera Rao
We walked the old city streets, and checked out the Chinese medicine shops, ate freshly cooked dumplings. The old city is still a charming and 'living' city even though it now caters to hordes and hordes of tourists!!! The Watertown is very picturesque and I hope to paint a few more paintings from the hundreds of photos I clicked :)
Entrance to Shanghai Zhujiajio International watercolor Biennial Exhibition gallery and Office
Plaque Explaining the Exhibition
Painting by Nicholas Simmons at the Gallery
As we were walking around, I suddenly noticed that one of the buildings was the Shanghai Zhujiajio International Watercolor Biennial Exhibition office and Gallery ! I was very excited to go in and check it out. There were still a few paintings from the last Biennial show that I recognized right away - by the wonderfully talented Nicholas Simmons, Alvaro Castagnet, and a few others as well as their current show with 35 paintings by Herman Pekel. This was the icing on the cake of this trip :)
6 comments:
Wow, thank you very much for an interesting post with full of information, Meera!! You did research well, lots of paintings and the information. You can be a wonderful correspondent, certainly. Best wishes, Sadami
Hi Meera!
This is a gorgeous post, wow! I still think you should publish your sketchbooks!
That's awesome that you went to view the sketchbook in Brooklyn!!!
I received a notification from The Sketchbook Project that you can pass along to the others. I'll copy and paste it here. Also, I checked on the stats of the sketchbook. I have a screenshot of the stats if you want to share that too. But it won't attach here. If you want to send your email address, I'll send it to you. :) Hope you're having a good summer!
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"Hello!
We just wanted to let you know that Meera Rao just viewed your sketchbook (#S168147) at Brooklyn Art Library in Brooklyn, NY!
Your book has been viewed 1 time so far.
Sincerely,
The Sketchbook Project
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Your posts are always fun to read
Sadami, Thank you for your generous comments! I thoroughly enjoyed my trip and loved sketching and sharing my impressions :)
Ashok, thank you ! I am happy you saw the fun experience I tried to share thru my sketches :)
Thanks Katherine ! (I am assuming its you even if the comment is under Unknown! ) I really enjoyed seeing the sketchbook in person at the Art Library in Brooklyn. But I was very annoyed by their system - they are more concerned with keeping the books in order and I couldn't just pull an interesting looking one off the shelf -- I had ask for one by name or as random and was also given one next to the one I asked. Have to wait another 5-10 minutes before asking for another :( It is amazing that so many people (40,00+ i think) have sketchbooks in there -- barely saw dozen - that too because I raided the basket that had sketchbooks waiting to be shelved! Wished they showed a bit of appreciation for being a part of the library and participating in the project..... I will post pics solon :)
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