Gu Ailing, who has two hands and one heart, Xu Mengtao, who holds the ice pier, and the short track speed skater who hugs each other tightly after winning the championship... Jia Jingrui, a post-90s boy, made 9 leaf carving works to record the gold medal winning moment of the Chinese team at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, hoping to use this intangible cultural heritage art to send blessings to the athletes of the Winter Olympics.
The 31-year-old Jia Jingrui, starting from the Chinese team winning the first gold medal of the Winter Olympics, used his favorite leaf sculpture to record the wonderful moments of the Olympic athletes' tenacious struggle on the field, and made a total of 9 leaf sculpture works in 15 days, with an average of 5 hours per work.
"The first carving is the picture of china short track speed skating mixed team relay race won the first gold, but also the most difficult one, because there are more characters, to carve 5 people on small leaves, the characters are relatively small, the facial features are difficult to show, I took 7 or 8 hours to complete the production." In Jia Jingrui's works, Gu Ailing's smiling face, the ice pier in Xu Mengtao's arms, and Su Yiming's corrective posture on the snowboard are all perfectly restored, and the plain leaves are transformed into lifelike works of art under the dexterous carving knife.
"Leaf carving is a comprehensive embodiment of the fusion of paper-cutting, seal engraving, seals, paintings and other processes, there is no two leaves in the world, even if you paint the same pattern, each leaf carving work will not be the same, carving on the fragile leaves requires special detail, if you are not careful, it is easy to crush, once the leaf vein is broken, you have to start from scratch." Jia Jingrui introduced that when making, he will first draw the pattern he wants to carve on the leaf or paper, and then carve on the leaf. The leaves used in the leaf carving are the natural fallen leaves he collected in the autumn, picked up and cleaned in clean water, soaked in a special solution, antiseptic treatment, dried and put into the newspaper to flatten, and then used after absorbing the water.
Jia Jingrui posted the leaf sculpture works on the online platform, which soon attracted the attention of many netizens, and once appeared on Weibo hot search.
"I began to contact leaf carving in 2018, it has been 4 years now, I am very happy to have so many people like my works, leaf carving is our traditional Chinese culture, belongs to the intangible cultural heritage, can let more people know leaf carving in this way, I am also very happy in my heart."
Jia Jingrui told reporters that his favorite athlete is Gu Ailing.
"I admire her for being so young, being able to do so many difficult moves, and having won two gold and one silver for the country, I am particularly proud of her, the Winter Olympics are nearing the end, and I hope that she will achieve excellent results in all future competitions."
Courtesy of respondents
Source Beijing Daily client | Reporter Zhang Xue
Edited by Kuang Feng
Process Editor Liu Weili