Have you ever tasted or perhaps heard of sugar painting? As fewer people choose to make this kind of painting, the traditional Chinese folk craft might have become a (distance) memory in some ways. However, a craftsman, Li Jianzhong, is committed to (keep) the art of sugar painting alive.
Li worked as a miner for more than ten years. After mine closed down, Li turned housing decoration until he (force) to give that up due to a finger injury. Later, he discovered sugar painting, something he really had an interest in and a strong desire to learn.
Since there was no sugar painting craftsman in his village, he studied by (he) through large quantities of videos and information on the Internet. Li loved painting when he was young, and he found it easy (learn) the skill in sugar painting. He soon mastered the skill and could make a (vary) of sugar paintings. A sugar painting is made of melted brown or white sugar. Craftsmen (normal) paint animals and flowers on a stone board with the syrup (糖浆). When the sugar cools down, appears is a piece of sugar art.
Van Gogh painted sunflowers for the first time in the summer of 1886. Two years later, his interest appeared again after he settled in Arles. After he had invited the French artist Paul Gauguin, whom he admired, to join his Studio of the South, he began painting sunflowers to brighten up the whitewashed walls of the yellow house he was living in, not far from the town's railway station.
Gauguin accepted Van Gogh's invitation. When he began dragging his heels, Van Gogh painted the last two of the four original Sunflowers for the plain bedroom where his guest would sleep following his arrival that autumn. "Van Gogh saw the Sunflowers for Gauguin's bedroom as a way of attracting his friend to come from Brittany," says Bailey.
According to Martin Gayford, "Gauguin was very surprised by the Sunflowers, which he repeatedly praised and asked for as a gift. Years later, Gauguin himself painted some sunflower pictures."
Van Gogh's Sunflowers stand for his relationship with Gauguin. "I think he painted them for the joy of it," says Jansen. "Van Gogh was at the height of his powers in the summer of 1888," explains Bailey. "He painted the Sunflowers quickly and with great energy and confidence." Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in late August, "I'm painting quickly now, which won't surprise you when it's a question of painting large Sunflowers."
Van Gogh recognised at once that he had created something important and that his sunflowers were so different. As he told Theo in January 1889, while other artists were known for painting other flowers, "The sunflower is mine." This, in fact, explains the reason for the popularity of Van Gogh's Sunflowers today.
Every year around this time kids perform in their holiday concert. For many schools it is the most well-attended 1 of the year. In years past, my daughter has joined her classmates in singing. This year was
2 though. She had a few speaking parts.
My daughter was very 3 about earning these parts. Yet with her excitement also came some nervousness. She repeatedly practised her lines until she knew them by heart. And, each day her class would prepare for what was going to be a special 4 .
Each day she would tell us that she did well but that she was very
5 . She was worried that people would 6 her if she made a mistake. Besides, she was worried about 7 in front of over a thousand people.
Then the 8 night came last week. We luckily got front-row seats, which was great for 9 .
When the time had finally arrived for my daughter to recite her lines, she did it 10 . But she thought she had made a mistake, and I could see that she was close to 11 when she had finished her first part. You can only imagine how 12 it was for me not to run up on stage and hug her and tell her how much I love her. What happened next was the reason why she is now my 13 .
She went back up to the microphone two more times and spoke her lines perfectly. It is her 14 that I will never forget. I will not
15 myself in any situation as long as I remember the night when my daughter showed me what real courage looked like.
