When the ice lanterns are lit in the streets of Harbin and the ice sculptures are set up in the streets and alleys, the people of Harbin know that the most dreamy moment of winter has arrived.
Luo Weixiao is a native of Harbin, from childhood to adulthood, his memories of every winter are accompanied by the joy of ice sculpture. Ice flowers made in childhood, dazzling ice lantern parades in Zhaolin Park... Both are indispensable winter fun. After graduating from the university majoring in fine arts, he went to Zhaolin Park to work in the work related to ice lanterns, under the tutelage of Zhu Xiaodong, a master of ice and snow art and the founder of ice prints.
How are ice sculptures made? Where are its difficulties and creative points? Here's what Roveshaw said:
Generations of Harbin people can be said to have lived in the atmosphere of ice and snow culture since childhood. Especially in 1963, after Harbin held the first ice lantern parade. Every winter, there are ice lanterns everywhere in Harbin, and even if you don't come to Zhaolin Park or Ice and Snow World, you can see ice sculptures on the street. Even if you see residual ice outside, if you like it, you can take it home and put it on the balcony to do something, which is very common.
On the central street of Harbin, you can see the beautiful ice lantern art picture IC
I remember when I was a child, the school also organized itself to make ice flowers, that is, to put some leaves, flowers, or anything else you like in the water, put them on the outside and freeze them, then put on the rope, pick up the whole stick, and go to school to hand in homework. This is the simplest ice art.
The kindergarten made its own ice flower infographic
Ice sculpture competitions are also organized in the school. When I was a sophomore in high school, I participated in art once because I was in elementary school, and it was also done in Zhaolin Park.
But at that time I didn't understand anything. The teacher prepared us a few very simple knives. After coming to the competition, we saw that people who had previous experience in the competition brought tools that were much more advanced than ours. However, in general, the tools used at that time were all transformed from wood carving tools, which can be said to be an enlarged version of wood carving tools, with flat knives, knives with curvature, and angle knives, which can better reflect the effect.
After participating in this competition, I had a general understanding of what ice sculpture is all about. I studied some fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts of Harbin Normal University, and after graduation, I went to Zhaolin Park, and then seconded to the Ice Lantern Office, and I officially began to contact ice sculpture and began to understand how the ice lanterns in Harbin are made every year.
Ice sculpture tools: professional development
In the beginning, the tool for ice sculpture was the iron piece in the planer used for carpentry, we called it the planer blade, take it simple welding, and use it to make ice sculpture. Later, people began to use woodcut knives, some flat, some with curved and various angles, and some people would also make enlarged versions of these tools. When I joined the work, there was also a tool called "fork", which was a flat knife with small teeth, which was more convenient.
Later, gradually, there were power tools, which were first brought by foreign players when the park held international competitions. For example, chainsaws are commonly used tools.
Ice sculpture has a special, called "through, leak, through". Transparency refers to the place in the middle that must be breathable. Before, if we wanted to dig a hole in the middle, we would all take a knife and hit it little by little. But now with a chainsaw, it only takes a few clicks to come down.
There is also an electric direct mill, which can be replaced with various grinding rods, and we can use it to make corals in the underwater world, and even irregular S-shaped things such as ocean waves. Without these grinding rods, older workers can also make them slowly little by little, but now they are faster and can realize more ideas.
Use a chainsaw to sculpt an ICE cube IC diagram
We are still using a hair dryer to help, because after using the straight grinding, a lot of snow foam will be generated, stuck to the ice sculpture, and we can directly blow them off with the hair dryer later. In addition, if the knife is not fast enough, the plane after carving will not be transparent enough, there is a sense of frosting, you need to put it outdoors for a day or two, and the surface can be slightly melted to achieve the transparent effect. You can use the hair dryer now.
The electric iron was also useful. When we do some complex ice sculptures, we need to first divide large pieces of ice into small pieces, carve out various parts, and then use an electric iron to heat the parts that need to be pasted to make it slightly melt, so that various shapes can be combined. Rabbit ears, butterfly wings, tentacles, and even fishing rods, for example, can be made this way.
Ice sculptures are done outdoors, and the winter in Harbin is generally more than twenty degrees below zero. If you watch from the side, it's cold enough to sit for half an hour, but we who do ice sculptures are fine, because we are always moving, wearing a little more and sweating, and the clothes inside are soaked.
Refine the works little by little figure Visual China
Test technology, but also test creativity
We who do ice sculptures usually think about improving techniques and tools. For example, looking for suitable grinding heads on the Internet, I will also hand-draw some small drafts by hand, and then make mud drafts for design, which are similar to the sculpture profession.
Every year, the ice sculpture competition is a big event, not only a competition, but also a communication platform, everyone challenges themselves and learns from each other. Many inspirations and ideas also collided during the game.
What impressed me was the experience told me by an old colleague. In the past, we didn't have a combination of ice sculptures, we could only make ice sculptures from whole ice cubes of 2X2 meters in size. Later, a foreign player at an international ice sculpture competition divided the ice into small pieces, carved it into different parts, and finally combined it. It's kind of like building blocks. He made a harrier, the harrier has a slender tail, and he used this method to extend the volume of the final finished product to 3X3 meters.
Works from the International Combination Ice Sculpture Competition held in Harbin Are of Visual China
This is equivalent to opening up a new way of thinking for us. Now, Harbin's Ice and Snow World also has a combination ice sculpture competition. In these ice sculpture competitions, I have also seen works that particularly impressed me, such as a grid of fishing nets made of ice sculptures, and Chinese knots, from hooks to pendants under Chinese knots, which can be moved. There is also a samurai on horseback who shoots arrows, and each arrow behind him is as thin as a little finger, which is particularly exquisite.
Exquisite ice sculptures on Central Avenue Figure IC
So I've been coming up with new pieces. I have a friend who does percussion and in his spare time we play African drums together. Once, when he was nagging, he asked me, can you make a drum out of ice?
I think it's interesting to make a set of African drums in 2016. The next year, a set of drum kits was made, which was even more troublesome, to install the drum rack on ice, and then cover the drum skin, but also to adjust the tightness of the drum skin, especially to test the kung fu of the maker.
Ice Drum Figure IC
Later, we also made Chinese drums, including pot drums, row drums, and lobby drums. These drums can be played normally, we used them to do several live performances, with Chinese drums to perform "Dragon Tenghu Leap", African drums performed "Little Baby", ice drums and electro-acoustic band joint performance "Flower Room Girl" and so on, the effect is good, it feels no different from normal drums.
I had consulted the percussion friend before, and he told me that the drum is expensive in the position of the seam inside the drum cavity, and the better the polishing, the more expensive it is. Because the sound waves vibrate on the inner wall of the drum cavity, the smoother the inner wall, the better the propagation. And the ice drum we made, at first, may have a little knife marks, and after a day or two the surface becomes smooth, so the sound is quite good.
The live performance is good Figure IC
I've seen a video of a Norwegian artist playing with ice instruments, his violin, guitar, marimba, harp and other instruments are made of ice, and I would love to imitate him and make more ice instruments, such as our traditional Chinese chimes.