Foreign students in Shandong create Spring Festival paintings

[Video by Chen Hongyu and Wang Ying for chinadaily.com.cn]

A group of foreign students learned how to create Spring Festival paintings, or nianhua, at the Lyujialou Spring Festival Painting Museum in Linqu county, Weifang, East China's Shandong province, on June 15.

The 11 students, who are currently studying at Weifang University, hail from countries like Morocco, Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea.

A foreign student draws her own Spring Festival painting. [Photo by Liu Ruihua for chinadaily.com.cn]

Spring Festival painting is a folk art form that originated from ancient door god paintings. They are usually posted on doors and walls during the Spring Festival to express people's wishes for a prosperous and happy new year.

Linqu Spring Festival painting is a provincial-level intangible cultural heritage with a history of more than 100 years. They combine various techniques and styles of local art forms, such as woodblock printing, sculpture and stone carving.

Foreign students show off the Spring Festival paintings they made. [Photo by Wang Ying for chinadaily.com.cn]

Built in 2017, the Lyujialou Spring Festival Painting Museum is the first of its kind in Weifang and serves as the main platform for promoting and marketing Linqu Spring Festival paintings.

The foreign students appreciated the Spring Festival paintings on display at the museum and watched as Liu Zuopeng, an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, prepared Spring Festival paintings.

Under Liu's guidance, the students also tried their hands at coloring their own paintings. (Edited by Fan Yuanyuan)