Remember when I was young (then let's always remember)

I remember when I was young,

I loved chatting and you loved laughing.

Once sitting side by side under a peach tree,

The wind was whistling in the treetops.

We don't know how to get sleepy,

How many flowers fall in our dreams.

"When the moon goes, I also go, and I weave a basket with the moon." Who never heard this ballad when he was a child? Who never looked at the bright moon in the sky in surprise when he was a child and walked with the moon.

time flies, the moon is still the moon, but we are still us?

The innocence, curiosity and frankness of childhood, are they still there?

yes. Everyone's innocence is there.

It's just that our innocence, like us, needs care, nutrition, arousal and rediscovery.

Cai Hao, an artist

Cai Hao, a 74-year-old artist, has always been so naive and has always found nourishment in his life.

"Reality is hard, and literary, artistic and ideal things can soften it."

So, she warms all of us with her paintings, her words and her life.

reminisce about childhood and regain innocence

"My feelings and interests were actually given in childhood. I remember the first sip of milk, the first book, the first nursery rhyme and the first lullaby in my childhood. This stroke from childhood to life, a brand-new page of the first book, whatever color you give it, that color exists as the background color. "

When Cai Hao goes back to the karma with literature and art, he can't avoid the childhood of Old Changsha. In the book "Background Color", she looks back on her childhood, recalling the taste of scraping bean jelly and mung bean juice, grandma's autumn solstice pepper and the head of a jar, and the overwhelming fragrance of sweet rice wine that intoxicated her little sister ... The past is as vivid as old photos.

Illustration of

Background Color

Of course, there are nursery rhymes pulled out by grandma's needlework: "The moon is Baba, and there is a dad sitting in her head; Dad came out to buy food and sat with a grandmother in his head; Grandma came out to box, with a girl in her head; The girl came out to embroider, and embroidered a Baba ... "

" The Moon Baba "was a nursery rhyme sung by a fine girl in Changsha a thousand years ago. They looked at the sky in the moonlight at night: the moon was more like a Baba yo, so beige and white. Baba is more like the moon, as white as the moon, as waxy as the moon, as sweet as the moon ...

Perhaps this is the case, and the ancient Changsha nursery rhyme was created by people sentence by sentence, right? Singing and editing, the characters in it come alive, and some people have stories, and the particularly cute little urchin named "Monk Head" comes out:

Illustration of "Moon Baba" of "I remember being young at that time"

However, this little book is not just a child. When the moon is round, it is white and waxy, much like Ciba, and it is also when it is recalled. Memories are especially when the moon is white and the wind is clear. So "Moon Baba" is a soft and thick memory. "

-Cai Hao

"When the moon goes, I will go, and I will weave a basket with the moon. Mention the gate, the gate, picking pomegranate. Pomegranate has three layers of oil, and three sisters can comb their hair ... "The moon goes, so do I", which is also the moonlight in the old days, but also the memory of my grandmother:

The illustration of "Moon goes, so do I" in "I remember being young at that time" is about my grandmother's children. My grandmother only knows a few words, which are enough for her to write letters to her relatives, and the stories in her stomach are more interesting than her words. As long as she sits down and picks up her needle and thread, those stories will be pulled out like a needle and thread. If you are interested in listening, she will tell them intentionally. "When the moon goes, I will go" and "Moon Baba" are also stories ...

My grandmother wears her hair in a daily way, commonly known as "Baba Head", which is the kind of hair that the elder sister combs in nursery rhymes. When grandma combs her hair, I watch it very carefully. When she was a grandmother, she was still a head of hair, and she was exquisite. The hair that came out of the dish matched her oval face very well, and sometimes there were white orchids in her bun.

—— Cai Hao

Remember when I was young. Cai Hao/The Yuefu Culture & The two nursery rhymes

produced by Beijing United Publishing Company, Cai Hao painted album pages (which are now folded), and also painted children's books in square format. Their creative mood, creative concept and appearance are very different.

The composition of the folded album is simpler and the colors are simpler. Cai Hao hopes that this clean picture will bring everyone back to the childhood world, and he can't help singing these ballads in the picture book:

"The nursery rhymes given to me by my grandmother should last for a lifetime, from which we can learn the wisdom and spiritual strength of life. Some nursery rhymes are more delicious than eating olives ... Dialect is our origin, the origin of language, and finally. Nursery rhymes and children's songs are the best things in the tradition that can be passed down for a long time. When we know something about it, we remember homesickness. "

Moon Baba is a folded picture book.

The cover of the folded booklet is made of plain grass-scented paper. It can be seen that fine grass leaves are scattered on the paper, which has the color and taste of nature.

The text is made into a continuous organ fold, which unfolds into a small long scroll. Grandma Cai Hao's picture book is completed in one go, which is very suitable for such a flowing album.

Before the lamp is erected, it looks like a miniature screen. Chickens who eat rice, girls who look at flowers, and monk-headed boys who climb trees ... jump between folded pages, just like characters in shadow play.

every album page is a work of art.

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Life is really like a chicken feather

I am grateful that it has become a splendid place

Grandma Cai Hao has seen the ups and downs of social change and the rough and hard life, but living with her will always be fresh and fun. The background color paved in childhood has never changed, the original heart of art and literature has never been lost, and the enthusiasm for life has never been lost.

She is not shy about talking about the "black" in life: "Sometimes life is really like a chicken feather in one place, and sometimes it is as hard as a stone and blocked like a reinforced concrete wall." However, "I found my art, and I am grateful for my daily life. I am grateful that the chicken feather in that place can turn into a picture in my life and become a splendid place now."

Her series of oil paintings of "People and Flowers" are probably so splendid:

The illustration of "Talking with Cai Hao and Notebook Series"

Just remember the flowers but not the years

She painted hundreds of lives of children, with various natures and various charming gestures:

The one of "Talking with Cai Hao and Notebook Series" < p Some are the colors of grass and trees, the smell of lobster sauce pepper, the fragrance of grapefruit peel, the stars in apples, and the sweet and pleasant names of traditional Chinese medicines ... Little happiness in the years is recorded here, which makes people feel warm:

"Talking to Cai Hao Notebook Series"

"Miscellaneous Notes on the Roof" illustration

She wrote down the childlike words of her little grandson Zhou Zhouzi. This world that adults can't imitate, and the daily life that comes with all kinds of joy and gets along with children:

"Dialogue with Cai Hao and Notebook Series"

"Illustration of Mr. Xiao"

"Dialogue with Cai Hao" Notebook Series 4

Writer Li Qingcai said that reading Cai Hao's works "reminds me of Shen Congwen, which is straightforward and lively.

Serah, a reader of Douban, said that she loved these "plain, interesting and fascinating daily lives". "Teacher Cai Hao is a gardener, an artist and a natural person. She can grow a cabbage as a flower, and she lives beautifully.". When she captured these beautiful moments in life, she probably didn't think that these paintings, miscellaneous notes and essays could also touch and soothe the hearts of adults.

Four notebooks are covered with color by grandma Cai Hao's paintings. Within the cover, two-color cotton with red and green colors is selected for mounting, and the cloth surface is gilded, which has a vulgar effect and echoes grandma Cai's favorite folk art tones.

In the text, we have selected dozens of watercolor children's paintings, oil paintings and flowers, daily life drawings of my little grandson and sketches of the roof garden by Grandma Cai respectively. Following each theme of Grandma Cai Hao, we can complete a "dialogue" with artists and record our own daily life and understanding.

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I think I'm a late-maturing rice.

I'm short but strong.

In 219, Grandma Cai Hao was invited to a podium to share her artistic career and creation, which can complement and be inseparable from her artistic achievements, but it was her childhood and her life, from which she drew endless nutrients.

In 1993, Cai Hao's picture book "The Fox in the Wild Garden" won the "Golden Apple Award" at the 14th Bratislava International Children's Book Fair (BIB), becoming the first China painter to win this honor. This book was first published by Zhejiang Children's Publishing House. Later, Taiwan Province Xinyi Culture reprinted this book and renamed it Bao Er, which we are more familiar with:

The picture book Bao Er illustration

Adapted from the story Jia Er from Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio

The picture book The Story of Peach Blossom Garden illustration

Picturesque beauty comes from the countryside where Cai Hao taught in his youth < She drew Mulan:

Picture Book Mulan Illustration

Mulan returned to her hometown and came back to her own life

She drew Meng Jiangnv:

Picture Book Meng Jiangnv Illustration

Meng Jiangnv went to the Great Wall to find her husband, only to see thousands of people like ants

bearing a heavy fate

. She said that what she did was to watch her childhood. I hope that these picture books will be rowed there like boats, seen by children, and then go to the end, and grow up with picture books like pursuing the peach blossom garden.

However, her works are not only for children, but also for people of different ages.

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Good things are not afraid of loneliness

Good works will grow with readers, and people will have different feelings when they look at it at different stages of life. Cai Hao's picture books are not only for children, but also for adults.

The Story of Peach Blossom Spring is a longing for rural life and a look back on the simple farming civilization.

Mulan is forbearing and strong in facing the hardships of life.

The background color of "Bao Er" is "black", which is a period of spirit growing from black land. Strong red and green scream like children, trying to express their desire.

Meng Jiangnv has a dramatic stage, the warmth of earthly life and the sadness of ant life, and the feeling of collapse and deformity.

Cai Hao once said that if there is not enough in children's books, she will move to works for adults. What can't be shown in adult works is put back into children's picture books, just like the needlework done by southern women called "Shuang Mianxiu"-perhaps, it can be understood that her works, seemingly the same thing, often grow into two meanings.

Cai Hao said in the book Background: "What is my work? It is like a clear water, neither too big nor too small, just to see my sky and clouds and my life. "

For more than ten years, these albums, which recorded the old childhood events, books filled with life fragments and natural notes, and pictures of the beauty of scenery have been kept in the bookcase in Cai Hao, and kept for themselves and their relatives and friends to play with. People who have a chance to see them can't help but admire "beautiful", but they have never been published.

until now, these works that have been sleeping for a long time have finally met the readers. Someone asked Cai Hao: "Your works are well recognized abroad, but the situation in China is not optimistic. What do you think?"

She said, "Good things are beautiful, and there is truth and goodness in beauty. The beauty of the natural state is the state of true beauty. As the saying goes,' a crop of rain is a crop', and there is a day on everyone's head, and there will be rain. People always have feelings for good things, and the works will not be in a hurry, and I will not be in a hurry. Good things are not afraid of loneliness. "