Riding the wind of rebirth

What is "acid fire painting"?

“It’s a way of painting on a bamboo chair,” Zhou Zhi said. “You can mix acid with talcum powder and paint on bamboo slips. After the painting dries, you can spray it onto the bamboo slips with a blowtorch. The painted part will show the shades of ink like a traditional Chinese painting, and it will penetrate the bamboo deeply. The sprayed painting will not fade due to wear and tear, and it can show a very perfect traditional Chinese painting style.”

"This was a unique craft of several masters at the Jiachuan Bamboo Ware Factory, and it is now almost lost."

Bamboo chairs and bamboo beds are quite bulky and have gradually disappeared from home furniture. As the saying goes, "If the skin is gone, what will the hair cling to?" Since the carrier is gone, the art attached to it is also gone.

"Then why add talcum powder?"

"I asked my dad about it later, and there's nothing special about it. If you don't add some talcum powder, the acid paint won't leave any marks on the bamboo, and you won't know what the finished painting will look like," Zhou Zhi explained. "After adding talcum powder, a light white mark of the painting will be left on the bamboo strip, and the painter can see what the whole painting will look like after it's finished."

"So simple?" Uncle laughed: "Indeed, the wisdom of the working people is boundless. We can't even understand such a simple principle."

"Third Aunt, Yang's essay is ready." Zhou Zhi tested the seal and then tapped it a few times on the edge and center with the handle of the carving knife: "That's good enough."

"Hey, elbow, what are you doing?!" Third Aunt was startled: "Why did you break the seal?"

“This is an anti-counterfeiting mark,” Zhou Zhi said with a smile. “Even if I were to carve another seal exactly like yours, I wouldn’t be able to replicate these random marks on the seal. Therefore, this seal is unique.”

"Is this how the ancients prevented counterfeiting?"

"Yes, that's one of the methods."

"That's interesting," my uncle chuckled. "A few taps like that, and the seal has acquired... what you call biological characteristics! It's unique, impressive!"

"I haven't taught my apprentice the last move of the elbow yet," Third Aunt said. "Where should these seals be placed?"

There are rules for affixing a seal; it needs to match the inscription, and if it's a painting, the composition needs to be balanced.

The inscription itself also has its rules. It is generally a vertical inscription, and even if it looks like a horizontal inscription, it may actually be a vertical inscription with two characters written vertically.

After guiding the three aunts to add their inscriptions and seals, the painting was considered complete. Zhou Zhi checked it over and felt that the completion level was quite good: "If I weren't a bit busy, I could have framed it."

"Don't bother with this," my uncle joked. "If you use your skills in restoring ancient paintings from the Six Dynasties on your third aunt's painting, it won't be worthy of the name. If someone buys it as a famous painting and you suddenly become rich, you won't be used to it."

"You're just making fun of people!" Third Aunt scolded Uncle, then said to Zhou Zhi, "But let's forget about the mounting. We have a fixed place for mounting, and the craftsman's skills seem decent."

"Third Aunt's three paintings are quite good." With suitable inscriptions and seals, the three ordinary paintings have now gained some spirit. Even Li Laosan and Xu Anxin, who had just returned from feeding the fish, felt that the spirit of the three paintings had been elevated to a higher level.

"There's too much blank space in the lower left corner of this lotus painting, which affects the overall composition." Zhou Zhi still found a flaw. This lotus painting is the best of the three. The third aunt was probably in a good mood when she was sketching the lotus petals, and her hand just happened to be moving smoothly. If the lower part had been filled in, it should have been a good chance of winning an award at school.

"Then what should we do?" Third Aunt asked. "Simple, just add a few small fish," Zhou Zhi said. "White stripes are easy to draw."

The method for painting a freehand fish in traditional Chinese painting is to first draw the body with a brush, then write a character similar to "目" in front as the mouth, add two black dots on the sides as the eyes, add a thin line below to outline the white belly, and then add the tail and fins following the shape of the body.

After comparing her drawing with Zhou Zhi's, the third aunt promptly handed the pen back: "You do it, add two small fish, it won't count as cheating!"

Zhou Zhi also felt that it would be a pity if the painting of the rice strips was not drawn well and ruined the painting of the third aunt. He felt that he would be more confident in drawing it himself. So he took the brush and casually added two small fish and used light ink to outline some water ripples.

The scene suddenly became more lively.

Xu Anxin immediately praised, "Yes, with these two little fish, Mom's painting has become much more vivid."

“It’s quite beautiful.” Li Laosan immediately chimed in, “Mom, will you send us this painting after the exhibition? We’ll use it to decorate our entryway; it should fit.”

The two of them immediately pinned down the artist of the painting, not giving the uncle a chance to add insult to injury by accusing the aunt of cheating.

Although it's just a few strokes, everyone can see that the two little fish are the finishing touch in this painting.

The uncle knew exactly what his daughter and son-in-law were thinking. His bickering with his wife was just a habitual joke. He laughed and said, "Alright, the art lesson is over. Let's start making the pancakes!"

Jingyang is actually somewhat like an immigrant city, with local residents making up 70% and immigrants making up 30%.

However, these 30% of people have become the main body of Jingyang's industry and economy. Many of them are employees of several large state-owned electromechanical processing enterprises, as well as their families, and are the driving force of this ancient yet young city.

Many of these people came from the north, and many were talents transferred from the three northeastern provinces to fill the gaps in the Third Front construction. As a result, Jingyang has developed a unique eating habit, somewhat like an isolated island with many northern delicacies.

For example, barbecue. This was the first time I had barbecue in Zhouzhi. Also, teppanyaki. This was the first time I had teppanyaki here.

So, in addition to many traditional local delicacies such as Luojiang bean chicken, Jingyang sliced ​​rice noodles, golden thread noodles, and eight-treasure oil cake, there are also northern specialties like twisted dough sticks, candied hawthorn, imperial pastries, smoked chicken, and hot pot beef. When I was little, my cousin Anxin would bring candied hawthorn back to Zhouzhi and his friends every time she went back to her hometown. The first time Zhouzhi ate real hawthorn candied hawthorn was also brought back by my cousin Anxin. At that time, the candied hawthorn in Jiachuan was all "fake," with dried red dates or even orange segments wrapped in sugar. There were fresh hawthorns that were not produced in Sichuan, which tasted novel and exciting.

Another type of dietary habit brought by northerners is noodles. Jingyang is still the only place in Sichuan where you can eat authentic Northeastern-style fried sauce noodles.

Therefore, many families in Jingyang are very skilled at making pastries.

However, Bai An was Zhou Zhi's worst skill, so he could only work as an assistant.

She's quite adept at chopping scallions, mincing ginger, mincing meat, and scrambling eggs.

However, the skill of making noodles could only rely on my aunt and uncle, as my second cousin from Jiachuan wasn't very good at it. (End of Chapter)