Brush Painting fun for Mandarin students at Rushcliffe School

Brush painting workshops at Rushcliffe School

23/7/2021

The week commencing 19 July saw year 8 and 9 Mandarin students at Rushcliffe School, one of NCI's partner schools,  attend Chinese Brush Painting workshops, where they painted their first ever peony flowers. As you can see from the pictures on the right, the students' enthusiasm and flair produced some gorgeous artwork!

The workshops were delivered online by our friend Jack Jiang, a professional artist, who worked as residential artist at Lakeside Arts and visited several NCI partner schools including Rushcliffe School back in 2017. A group of Rushcliffe students also visited his studio in Ningbo as part of their visit to China during Easter half term in 2019.

The workshops were jointly organised by the Language Department and the Nottingham Confucius Institute at the University of Nottingham. Feedback from the students was overwhelmingly positive. “It is challenging but fun. I would love to do it again!” commented one student from year 8. “It looks like a simple brush paint but it’s harder than it looks, because of the special way you draw it accurately with different shades of the colour, it is really fun!” commented another from year 9. 

 ~ENDS~

诺丁汉孔子学院拉什克里夫中学国画工作坊活动

文/廖茄宏 图/诺丁汉大学孔子学院

当地时间2021年7月19日-23日，诺丁汉大学孔子学院邀请国内著名国画家姜红升老师在线上为拉什克里夫中学（Rushcliffe School）八、九年级的汉语学习者呈现了四场别开生面的中华国画文化工作坊。疫情当下，姜红升老师无法同往年般亲临孔院教学点进行国画的教授。但在网络教学平台的帮助下，经过姜老师和孔院汉语老师的多次协商调试，终于将此次文化体验课成功转移为专家在线上即时教授，孔院老师在线下即时辅助，学生在教室即时体验的跨时空课堂。

姜老师多年的牡丹绘画及教学经验和其流利简明的英文指导让年少的英国中学生们极快地掌握了以毛笔，水彩为主的国画绘画要领。唯有牡丹真国色，异域盛放惊众人。学生们掌握了牡丹花瓣色彩浓淡递减的笔法要领后，在历史悠远的宣纸上成功创作出了自己人生中第一幅牡丹水彩画。

此次活动得到了该中学语言部负责人的大力支持及同校老师和参与学生的积极评价，极大助力了汉语教学在该校的推广。拉什克里夫中学的汉语学习者们，自2019年起在疫情反复的艰难环境下不懈坚持了两年的汉语学习。在学年即将结束之际，此国画工作坊让该校学生们再次体验了中华文化的魅力，在激励了八年级同学继续学习汉语的兴趣与动力的同时，也为九年级同学们的两年汉语学习历程画上了完满的句号。  

~终~