Text/Peninsula All-Media Reporter Wang Hongzhi Photo/Courtesy of Interviewee
Recently, the mascot of the Beijing Winter Olympics, "Ice Pier", has become popular all over the world, which can be described as "a pier is difficult to find". In addition to the ceramic version of the "ice pier", other "ice piers" have also turned out, such as ice sculpture version, snowman version, orange version, paper-cut version, tangyuan version, etc., which have attracted a lot of attention. Among them, Qingdao folk face plastic craftsman Zhang Xuewei made a video of "high-end" face plastic "ice pier", which also attracted heated discussion among netizens. Zhang Xuewei said that she made the face sculpture "ice pier" in order to inherit the intangible cultural heritage and cheer for the Winter Olympics. On the afternoon of the 8th, Zhang Xuewei also specially created a new shape of "ice pier" congratulating Gu Ailing on winning gold. In addition, the face sculpture work "Hundred Tigers Fighting for Spring" is magnificent, which also opens the eyes of all media reporters on the peninsula.
The old craft pinched out the new fashion "ice pier" video to attract onlookers
"Ice pier, it's so cute, if you can't buy it, make it yourself." On the evening of February 7, netizens "@Pretty Food" posted videos of making face sculptures "ice piers" on multiple online platforms, which aroused the attention of netizens. In the video, the netizen recorded each production step with the camera, accompanied by playful and cute music, piece by piece of dough, slowly turned into a plastic version of the "ice pier". Different from many face sculpture "ice piers", in addition to cuteness, the "ice piers" made by the netizens are more exquisite and cute.
"It's so cute!" "The teacher is superb and praises!" "Netizens are too talented, superb craftsmanship, make the ice pier fire more hot!" "Old craftsmanship pinches out new fashion, the collision of intangible cultural heritage and the Winter Olympics!" After watching the video of making the face sculpture "ice pier", netizens have left a hot discussion.
On the morning of February 8, the peninsula all-media reporter contacted the netizen "@Pretty Rao", she is Zhang Xuewei, a qingdao folk face plastic craftsman. "This dough was just made last night. The ice piers are very hot these days, and I have some young students who are very interested in the ice piers and they want to do them. These two days, I also watched the Winter Olympics at home, and I felt that the ice pier was very cute. If you use our professional face molding technique, the ice piers made will definitely look good. So I added some of my ideas and shared them with everyone to cheer for the Beijing Winter Olympics, and also made more people interested in plastic traditional culture. Zhang Xuewei said that because at the time of production, only she was at home, it was more difficult to record videos, so she combined them into videos by taking photos, step by step for everyone to watch.
Zhang Xuewei told Peninsula All Media reporters that compared with many of her other face sculptures, the production of "Ice Pier" is relatively simple. "I've seen some of the other people's face sculpting practices online, but some of them are rougher. I do the dough molding pursuit of fine, this ice pier I took about 20 minutes to complete. Zhang Xuewei said.
Fusion of mathematics and architectural concepts to make Gu Ailing won the gold version of "ice pier"
What are the tricks to make the "ice pier" a good example? Zhang Xuewei "poured out his heart" to all-media reporters on the peninsula.
"In my face painting teaching, I have always integrated mathematical thinking and architectural thinking, doing first, then doing, decomposing and combining complex problems so that children can have rational analysis, such as proportion control. In the video I made the ice pier, you can see that I divided the whole piece of material into 5 parts, one of which is the head and tail, and the remaining four parts are the body, which is a more appropriate ratio. I watched the video on the Internet, some people took out an egg-shaped dough and made their heads directly on it, in my experience, this is not appropriate. It is best to take out a hood and then make the head alone, and then put it on will be more three-dimensional. Zhang Xuewei said.
The reason why netizens call this face sculpture "ice pier" a high match is also related to Zhang Xuewei's excellence. "The colorful lines around the head of the ice pier, I rub into thin strips, not randomly put, which color to put in what position, to drag and wrap themselves to achieve the best results." Its dark circles are hunched over, lower than its mouth, its mouth gently upturned, and then I put the ice pier on the base of the blue-and-white gradient, and the base of the gradient needs to be adjusted by itself, which is difficult. "It's just one of the ones I've done, and I'll do a few more in a few days and see which one you like better." Zhang Xuewei said.
On the morning of February 8, in the final of the freestyle ski jump, Gu Ailing successfully won the championship with a total score of 188.25. After learning the news of Gu Ailing's gold grab, Zhang Xuewei created a new shape of "ice pier" congratulating Gu Ailing on winning gold for the first time.
"Architect" became a "face sculptor" who retired this year and devoted himself to making face plastic
Seeing Zhang Xuewei's face sculptures, it is difficult for people to imagine that she is actually a "halfway out of the house" artist. "I studied architecture and used to work for a real estate company. By chance, I began to contact the face sculpture in my 40s, although the contact was late, but from a small hand is more skillful, plus I know my master, and later the opposite plastic is more and more interested, I went to him to worship the teacher. Zhang Xuewei said that in 2009, she studied with Han Hongyuan, the fourth generation of "Han's face sculpture" in Linyi Tancheng, and officially became the "fifth generation of Han's face sculpture" in 2017.
Over the years, Zhang Xuewei's face sculptures have won many awards. For example, works such as "Mengwa Came to WangGezhuang" won the "Excellence Award" of the 8th Laoshan Wanggezhuang Fancy Steamed Bun Competition in Qingdao City; the work "Birthday Star He Shou" won the "Best Work Award" of the 2017 Qingdao Shibei "Craftsman Star" Vocational Skills Competition; in 2019, a total of 9 styles of works for wedding banquets and birthday banquets won the focus interview; in 2020, the work "Stay until the cherry blossoms are full" won the "Excellence Award" of the Shandong Provincial Anti-epidemic Intangible Cultural Heritage Works Selection Activity and the "Special Award" of the Qingdao Intangible Cultural Heritage Anti-epidemic Works Competition. "Harmonious Innovation" won the third prize of the Third Qingdao Handicraft Competition.
"I retired this year, and found that there are more and more people interested in plastic surgery, and the development environment is getting better and better, so I gave up re-employment and planned to do face plastic wholeheartedly in the future." I registered Qingdao Qiao Rao Food Co., Ltd., the company is not large, do some face molding by yourself, and people who are interested can come to learn. Zhang Xuewei said that she now has more than 20 students, one-on-one face teaching, many primary school students, the youngest is 5 years old, there are also some steamed bun shop owners, handicraft enthusiasts, etc., and many foreign friends come to her to learn face sculpture. In addition, she has also participated in many activities such as entering the campus and has been hired as an instructor.
"Inheritance + innovation" pays attention to the three points of the pursuit of perfect inheritance of intangible cultural heritage
"I am not the same as the old way of the master, the master does a lot of traditional martial arts and other images, and now I both inherit and combine the new image." Now that young people accept it, traditional culture has vitality. The route I take is high-end, pursuing some meticulous things, combining customer preferences, designing orders for customers, adding new techniques, and learning from new ideas. Zhang Xuewei said.
Zhang Xuewei told the Peninsula All-Media reporter that the reason why his company is called "Pretty Food" is to perfectly combine the craft noodle sculpture with the collection value and the edible noodle sculpture (Wang Gezhuang iron pot steamed bun). "Master felt that the path of my inheritance was very good, and he was very supportive of me, and also helped me develop several styles. Now, customers across the country send orders through the Internet, and the feedback is very good. I don't pursue quantity, I pursue perfection, and I make every work delicate. For her own facial plastic products, Zhang Xuewei pursues "three points": delicious, good-looking, and memorable. "The big steamed bun is delicious, the noodles on it are beautiful, and they can also be used as decorations and collectibles." Among the previous customers, many elderly people stored birthday stars, pine cranes, etc., and the face sculpture of the baby feast series can accompany the children to grow up, not only delicious and good-looking, but also rose to the spiritual level. ”
There are some old process surface plastic materials that cannot be used on steamed buns, and some are easy to fall off in the process of sending couriers, so Zhang Xuewei must continue to innovate and find new materials. "The problem of express logistics must be solved, because only by shipping can this product go out of Qingdao." Zhang Xuewei said. At present, Zhang Xuewei's customers have spread all over the country.
From many years of art, Zhang Xuewei has not only accumulated excellent facial plastic skills, but also has a deeper understanding of the art of facial plastic, allowing more people to appreciate the unique charm of folk face sculpture culture, and she has to do far more than this, on the road of China's face sculpture intangible cultural heritage, she will unswervingly go on!
Link >> make a hundred tigers to fight for spring, bless the motherland and the people
Zhang Xuewei used traditional face-sculpting techniques combined with new materials to produce 100 pocket tigers with different shapes, distributed on the map of China, showing the happiness, well-being and happy life of the Chinese people, implying that hundreds of tigers compete to depict a better spring for the motherland in the future.
The 100 tigers without duplicate samples are all original and handmade, and the techniques have three categories: realistic, semi-realistic and cartoon, the smallest tiger is only 3cm tall and the largest is 6cm. Among them, the core tiger located in Beijing is made in a realistic way, the form is calm, looking down on the land of China, the tail is slightly cocked to show vigilance, behind it is the party flag and the national flag, and above the two flags is the Chinese dream, which means that the Communist Party is leading the steady development of the country; the national defense tiger located in the border defense position of the South China Sea adopts the production method of combining realism and cartoons, wearing a camouflage suit and holding a steel gun, and the tiger's mouth slightly opens its sharp teeth, representing our army to attack at any time and protect the country; cartoon tigers with various names are distributed everywhere in the territory. There are independent and combined: love the party, patriotism, strong country, rural revitalization, poverty alleviation, tackling tough problems, well-off, green mountains, green water, learning from history, governing the country according to law, improving people's livelihood, the original heart, cultivating the heart and keeping the right, angry and strong, cultural self-confidence, the Belt and Road, living and working in peace and contentment, prevention and control, retrograde, all vaccines, unity of purpose, peace, joy, auspiciousness, good luck, health, higher, faster, stronger, intangible heritage, inheritance, innovation...
In the territorial airspace of the territory, there are three flying cartoon tigers in the sky, aerospace and aviation, representing the flying dream of the Chinese nation.
The overall work presents the current social harmony, the prosperity and strength of the people, the development of science and technology on the mainland, and the good wishes of every citizen who strives to add spring color to the motherland.