What "kung fu" does the non-hereditary inheritor have to make the "batter" turn into a "face tiger"?

Liu Yuwei's face sculpture for the Year of the Tiger

Top News Henan Business Daily reporter Song Hongsheng intern Jin Pingwen / photo

As the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger approaches, Liu Yuwei, the representative inheritor of the fifth batch of provincial intangible cultural heritage in Henan Province, took the theme of "Yellow River Tiger Baby" and pinched out a group of "Tiger Baby" face sculpture works with different forms.

The tiger's body is colorful, and the Fuwa riding the tiger is cute and vivid, and it is difficult to believe that it can be connected with the "noodles".

Ingenious

He made the "Yellow River Tiger Baby" face sculpture to welcome the Year of the Tiger

Approaching the Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger, Liu Yuwei took the tiger head shoes as inspiration and combined the traditional "tiger head" image with the face sculpture technique through kneading, pasting, pressing, setting and other techniques, and produced a series of "Yellow River Tiger Baby" face sculpture works. "The images of 'Fuwa, Luwa, and Shouwa' here all have traces of traditional folklore, and also express my New Year wishes, and I hope that everyone will have a happy life, auspicious and peaceful life in the coming year."

On the exhibition shelf of Liu Yuwei's studio, there are several face-shaped Luohan plates sitting on coins worth five cents. Through the magnifying glass, you can clearly see the complete details of the Luohan and the realistic facial expressions.

"The production of face sculpture, pay attention to clever, fast, accurate, moist, dazzling, that is, clever design, fast technique, accurate production, soft shape, dazzling colors." Liu Yuwei said that in order to prevent the dough from drying out, the production needs to be made in one go within tens of seconds, the hands cannot be shaken, and if there is a slight difference, the previous achievements will be abandoned.

Bonding

From food carvings to face sculptures, his works are now in the museum collection

Before learning face sculpting, Liu Yuwei was a food carver. At the age of 17, the head chef of Liu Yuwei's hotel invited two face sculpture artists to the scene to teach, originally wanted the chefs to learn from the skills of face plastic, but Liu Yuwei became obsessed with face plastic since then, and quit his high-paying chef job to learn from the teacher. He successively studied under famous teachers, absorbed the strengths of others, and gradually formed his own face sculpture art style.

Nowadays, more than a dozen sets of his works are permanently collected by a folk museum in Henan, and he has also won the silver medal of the National Folk Arts and Crafts Exhibition and the first prize of the First Folk Art Exhibition of Henan Province.

Inheritance

A craft that has lasted for thousands of years and has a vitality in modern communication

"Face sculpture must have vitality, and life is the best material." Liu Yuwei created a series of characters fighting the epidemic. He also tried to combine facial sculpture with traditional techniques such as Chinese painting, oil painting, and calligraphy.

In Liu Yuwei's view, the "genetic code" of facial plastic is in the child, for this reason, he goes to the campus every week to take plastic club classes. He also settled in Douyin, while telling stories, while pinching people, but also selling face plastic courses, material packs, etc., "I hope to spread the face sculpture culture more widely through the Internet platform." ”

(Big River Network)