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 :)
