So at the insistence of dear caro, I'm dusting off the old blogger with my watercolor sketches from China.
copypasta-ing the comments from deviantart.
Sketch of... my mother, sleeping on the plane (and the lady in the next seat over who seemed to keep looking over.)
Most of my stay was in 苏州 (Suzhou), which is very famous for its gardens. 沧浪亭 (Cang Lang Ting, or Great Wave Pavilion
wiki) is one such garden from the Song Dynasty.
I rather liked this garden; it's less known than the others perhaps because of its relatively small size (and so isn't punctuated by loudspeaker-guided tourist groups!) The street outside was busy, but once we entered the walls it was remarkably silent inside. I can imagine how it must have felt to be the official who retired there, refusing to dirty his hands any further with politics...
More 苏州 (Suzhou) gardens! This one is 留园 (Liu Yuan, or Lingering Garden
wiki). This garden was pretty cute because it included lots of 评弹 (pingtan, a traditional story-singing form) performers, like this lady playing 琵琶 (pipa, sort of guitar-like instrument) on this wee wooden boat.
The train ride from 苏州 (Suzhou) to 南京 (Nanjing) is a bit more than an hour long, which of course means draw-time!
The train reached a max speed of ~320 km/hr, which made drawing any actual passing-by scenery impossible. So this bit of building and phone cable is more an amalgamation/impression of the view from my window.
I think I drew this while we passed by 无锡(Wuxi) but I'm not sure.
anyway, the clouds in China are really something compared to the 'clouds' in LA (which are more smog blankets, really.)
This is 玄武湖 (Xuan Wu Lake) in 南京 (Nanjing). Ah, I drew this after I lost my digital camera (with 500+ pictures!) in Nanjing, so I was rather grumpy after that.
oh, and my mother decided to show-off and fix my sad little willow tree with her skills in traditional Chinese painting... so this painting is not completely mine, haha.
...this doesn't actually have much to do with China, but I did draw it on this trip. A sort-of self-portrait done from the reflection of the train window on the way back from Nanjing to Suzhou. As self-portraits go, this isn't very accurate (I look more like the painting in my deviantID, haha) but heck, it was fun to make.
I noticed I have an odd tendency to lengthen faces around the nose area when making this kind of quick pencil-less sketch...
This is actually my favorite sketch I did from this trip. This is 同理 (Tongli
wiki), a little touristy town right on the outskirts of Suzhou. This sketch was done from the window of a coffee shop, so I was a lot more patient to draw from my air-conditioned vantage point!
This isn't a sketch of any particular place, actually, but just a sort of general impression of the picturesque little bridges and canals of Suzhou, which is why it is known as 水乡（shui xiang, or water ...township, kind of a weird translation...)
The willow trees blowing in the light breeze, carp swimming under lily and lotus pads next to hundreds-of-years-old bridges... it's quite nice.
anyway, that concludes this travel series!
...I realize now that the scan is somewhat lopsided. Damn! I already packed this sketchbook into my suitcase... perhaps I'll rescan when I'm not feeling so lazy.
anyways, going to China with the parents made me realize that they actually grew up in a similar children-of-immigrants background as mine... being Taiwanese-born from mainland parents, being the 外省人 outsiders, then coming to America and being foreigners. Returning to Taiwan after 30 years, everything changes and is foreign. And going back to China to where their parents are from, but not belonging even when they feel they should. In a way I feel better off, as at least I was born here and do consider myself American, whereas they consider themselves neither Taiwanese nor Chinese nor American... perpetual outsiders without a homeland.
Perhaps they are simply Cerritos citizens.
