Branding painting, also known as fire stroke painting and hot painting in China, is to use iron as a pen, with "fire temperature" as ink, burning pictures on wood boards, bamboo yellow, silk, cloth and other materials, that is, using the temperature of "fire" to burn on the materials used, so that it produces a coking effect and burns out the pictures. Brand painting is an ancient art form with deep historical roots in China.
In nanming district of Guiyang City, there is such a septuagenarian, he actively innovates on the basis of inheriting traditional skills, using a piece of rice paper and an electric soldering iron to outline a series of exquisite brand painting works, "branding" his artistic life. He is Chen Guoliang, the inheritor of Guiyang Intangible Cultural Heritage Paintings.
Chen Guoliang has loved fine art painting since childhood, and graduated from the Chinese painting class of the Guizhou Branch of China Correspondence University of Calligraphy and Painting. In the 1980s, by chance, Chen Guoliang became acquainted with brand painting and became interested in it. At that time, Chen Guoliang was also a designer at a decoration company in Guiyang, using his spare time to learn branding. A certain degree of art skills also allowed Chen Guoliang to quickly master the production process and skills of branding painting, after years of painstaking research, Chen Guoliang's branding skills have become more and more exquisite, branding lifelike characters, cute animals and beautiful scenery on wood planks, bark, gourds and other materials.
"At that time, I was working part-time and studying branding at night. With the continuous reform of the production process and tools, the previous 'oil lamp branding' has also been changed to 'electric branding', and then developed to 'laser branding', after the single soldering needle or soldering iron is changed to a special electric branding pen, the more advanced electric branding pen can be adjusted at will, plus equipped with a variety of special pen heads, so that this ancient way of creation has an unprecedented ability to express. Chen Guoliang recalled.
In the field of branding painting, the vast majority of branding painters are painted on wood boards, bark, gourds and other materials, these materials are harder and thicker, and the branding system is easier to control, but the color is mostly dark, light brown and even black, which is relatively single. As a result, Chen Guoliang had a different idea - rice paper branding.
Rice paper painting is a painting made by ironing a hot soldering iron on rice paper. According to Chen Guoliang, the creation of rice paper branding paintings pays attention to "the intention of the pen first and the formation of the pen" while grasping the heat and strength. Brand painting not only has the Chinese painting of hook, le, dot dye, rub, white drawing and other techniques, but also can burn out a wealth of layers and tones, with a strong sense of three-dimensionality, similar to brown sketches and lithographs, can maintain the style of traditional painting, so that it has a unique artistic charm, thus giving people a simple and elegant, endless aftertaste of artistic enjoyment. To complete a rice paper branding painting, the creator is required to understand the characteristics of the rice paper material, according to the needs of the composition, master the speed of the branding, control the temperature of the branding, grasp the angle and pressure of the branding, and use the hanging techniques of falling, starting, stopping, walking, living, stacking, rounding, returning, and hiding to create.
How to deal with rice paper and grasp the temperature of the soldering iron became Chen Guoliang's biggest problem, the temperature was low, and the effect of the branding painting could not be seen. When the temperature is high, the rice paper breaks. During that time, in Chen Guoliang's studio, the ground was full of burned rice paper, and he saw that a brand painting was about to be completed, but he gave up because of a small mistake. Chen Guoliang tried hundreds of times, constantly summed up experience and practiced repeatedly in one failure after another, and finally succeeded after day and night of hard work.
Artistic innovation never ends. After successfully branding on rice paper, Chen Guoliang began to try to use rice paper to brand characters. The branding is simple, but Chen Guoliang pursues a font of its own school. After repeated research, he created a font that resembled the root of the tree, the Root Art Font. In 2009, Chen Guoliang's root art characters were awarded the National Invention Patent Certificate, which includes two parts: paper processing and painting techniques. The pioneering and innovative spirit and pure fire skills have made him a national first-class artist, a famous artist of Chinese calligraphy and painting, a hundred masters of Chinese art, a hundred masters of Chinese painting and calligraphy, and has won gold medals in international and domestic competitions for many times.
From studying painting to following the ancient law to creating a new law by himself, Chen Guoliang has been enthusiastic about creating along the way. He jumped out of the shackles of traditional branding painting and created a new way of rice paper branding. "Painting requires patience and a discerning eye." Chen Guoliang said that the beautiful mountains and rivers in his hometown, the diverse ethnic culture, and the thick farming civilization have provided him with endless creative themes. His branding paintings, with the intention of innovation, he boldly sets colorful on top of the branding marks, making the picture more vivid, changing the perception of the yellow and scorched bottom of the branding painting, and creating a colorful, fresh and bright branding painting. His paintings also move people with artistic conception. Landscapes are easy to get ink, but difficult to show. However, Chen Guoliang, who has a good skill, has already broken through the isolation between the branding and the landscape artistic conception, and he is very good at using the branding pen to paint the landscape, and the landscape artistic conception is better than the ink painting.
As the inheritor of rice paper branding, Chen Guoliang is well aware of the situation facing the art of branding painting today. In order to better protect and inherit the painting skills, he will adhere to innovation on the basis of inheriting traditional skills, focusing on works of art that are in line with the times. He has also been working on the dissemination of rice paper paintings for many years. In 2016, the non-genetic inheritance of brand painting entered Guizhou University for Nationalities, and the brand painting non-genetic inheritance studio was created. At the same time, he will also take the opportunity of rural revitalization to create works with characteristic themes such as humanities and nature, and make his own contributions to helping rural revitalization and increasing the style of Guizhou, so that everyone can feel the unique charm of brand painting at close range.
Reporter/Xiao Fang
Editor/Wang Jianglan
Editor/Liao Xun
Editor/Wu Qian, Xia Jin
Posted/Lei Yang