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by Leonie Andrews

Li River Cruising

For anyone who has been to the Guilin area a cruise on the Li River is an obligatory part of the visit. Thankfully it’s an experience that actually lives up to the hype. The scenery is like one of those Chinese paintings, all contorted mountains, sculptural rocks and bamboo growing along the river banks, with fishermen on their bamboo rafts, except it’s actually there before you. The only slight ammendment I would note is that most of the bamboo rafts have now been replaced by rafts of exactly the same design made out of pvc pipes with the ends capped. I am still trying to work out how they get them to bend at either end, with heat I presume.
I was lucky enough to have taken this boat cruise before so I was able to focus on my drawing (and take a few pictures). I managed 12 pages of sketches before I gave up. Here is a selection.
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On most pages I’ve tried to fit in more than one drawing. The two objects in the upper right drawing are just two of the flotilla of cruise boats making the trip.
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I spent some time after we got back to the hotel adding some watercolour to some of the drawings. Here is one of the successful ones, others were not so successful.
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by Leonie Andrews

Hi to my sketching buddies

Hi folks, I am still having a great time sketching daily life and scenes of China, but the wheels have fallen off the uploading waggon in the last few places we’ve stayed and I haven’t been able to upload posts with pictures. So depending on how things go you may see no posts or lots of posts depending on the wifi.
A special shout out to Kestrelart, we went out last night (25 October) and saw the cormorant fishing. You know it may be set up for the tourists, but the birds don’t know that. It was a magical experience even though it took place next to a busy road, under a big traffic bridge and with jet planes going overhead. The fisherman just kept encouraging the bids to dive for fish. The birds were really getting among the fish and caught quite a few.

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I was able to get up close to the birds before and after the demonstration and they seem fit and well and pretty happy with their fishing family.

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Anyway I hope I will be able to send some more pictures soon.

by Leonie Andrews

Suzhou Museum

I entered the central garden area of the Suzhou Museum and immediately this wonderful architectural space gave me the strong sensation of stopping and taking a deep breath.
Designed by the internationally renowned architect IM Pei, the museum was completed in 2006 and is said to be his last design.
I only got to visit because I pleaded with my guide to let me off the leash while the rest of our group went to the Humble Administrators garden next door to the Museum. I got 45 minutes to look before I had to rejoin my group.
While I seriously considered spending all of my short time at the museum sitting and looking at Pei’s rock garden I dragged myself away and did what would have to be one of the fastest museum ‘crawls’ on record.
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Thankfully I had left my camera on the bus so I had to draw to if I wanted to record anything. Here are the two items I drew. Firstly a stone in the Song Pavillion, a reconstruction of a scholars’ room. It came mounted on its own completely made to measure stand.
In the Neolithic section a sand cast ‘tripod’ ceramic pot which had a wonderful surface texture and a compelling shape.
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Finally I returned to the garden and spent my remaing 10 minutes drawing part of the rock garden.
Not surprisingly all the colour on these drawings was added after I returned to the hotel.
I would have loved to spend more time here, but at least I got there in the end. If you ever get the chance to visit please go.

by Leonie Andrews

Wuzhen water town

Today (23October)we spent a lot of time on the road. The driving was divided in two by spending several hours in Wuzhen, a small gem of a town, albeit stuffed full of tourists. The ‘town’ consists of several twisting narrow streets lined with old wooden houses either side of a section of canal. I took a camera battery’s worth of architectural details, wooden doorways and canal views. After lunch we had some free time so I sketched the canal with one of the stone bridges that cross it.
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