Sketching of Taihang Mountain Grand Canyon - Don’t be too busy anymore!

I would like to dedicate this document to the majestic Taihang Mountains and the people living on the mountains!

On October 22nd, Teacher Zhang and other sketching friends went home first, but Xie Baogen and I decided to stay and continue painting because we were greedy for the increasingly beautiful autumn colors of Taihang Mountain. Yang Shiming gave us He contacted a place called Qingliang Villa, and the owner was his classmate.

On the morning of the 24th, we packed all the paintings and gave them to Shi Ming, asking him to help us drive them to Linzhou to gather all the paintings before we checked them in when we went down the mountain. After packing our luggage, we had a simple lunch I said goodbye to all the service staff and thanked them for their service. Although I had no contact with them, it was a bit sad to say goodbye for the rest of my life. After resting for a while, we set off. Along the way, I found that there were fewer students sketching. The weather was getting colder and it was time for them to go back. As the car drove farther and farther and the road became narrower, my eyes wandered among the rocks and trees, and I suddenly remembered the "Bitter Cold Journey" written by Cao Cao when he was marching north to the Bingzhou Gaogan to cross the Taihang Mountains:

Going north to the Taihang Mountains is so difficult and majestic!

The sheep's intestines are bent, and the wheels are destroyed.

How desolate the trees are!

The sound of the north wind is sad.

A bear squats on me, a tiger and a leopard cry across the road.

There are few people in the valley, how does the snow fall!

When you stretch your neck and sigh, you have many things to cherish when you travel far.

Why am I depressed?

Thinking about returning eastward.

The water is deep and there are no bridges, and the middle road is wandering.

Confused and lost the old way, no shelter in the evening.

The journey was far away, and both men and horses were hungry.

Carrying a bag to collect salary, holding an ax and ice to make mince.

The sad Dongshan poem makes me sad.

In my wild thoughts, I drove over the high cliff, bypassed the Zhujing Stone, and then turned onto the winding mountain road. Soon I arrived at the small village where we drove to with Lao Wu a few days ago to wait for Yang Shiming. Classmates came to pick us up. It happened that a person in the village passed away last night, and everyone was busy leveling the site to prepare for the funeral shed. I saw Zhang Weisheng, the owner of Yijing Manor who cooked for us during the last sketch, was also there. He shoveled out a nest of little ones. The mouse's hair hadn't grown yet, and its eyes hadn't opened yet. It was struggling helplessly on the concrete floor. Someone took a shovel to fiddle with it. After a few times, the baby mouse stopped moving. I don't know which corner the mother mouse was hiding in silently. What about sadness and pain?

Sitting in the car and seeing all this, I thought to myself that it is really difficult to explain the connection in this world. The two of us came here to sketch. It happened that the unknown person passed away, which led to a nest of mice. The person who was holding the rat's nest was the only person we knew here. Is there any necessary connection between this?

Would this have happened if we hadn't come?

The world may be made up of coincidences, but what should happen will still happen, even if we don't come.

After Yang Shiming's classmate greeted the family of the deceased, he drove us to his manor. I got in his car and asked, "What's your surname, boss?" "My surname is Zhang Hagen." I said: "What a coincidence, it's not that the same family doesn't come into the same house, my surname is also Zhang, and I'm here to cause trouble for you." "You're welcome, welcome!"

This is another coincidence, I The classmate's name is Xie Baogen, and his friend's name is Wu Gendao. With the three of them together, is something big going to happen? It seems that Hagen is a simple and honest person. I am very happy to meet someone like him. It is a blessing to not have to worry about things outside the picture.

Not long after the car drove, there was a railing across the road. Zhang Hagen stuck his head out and said loudly to the person guarding the card: "There are two teachers who came to my village to sketch." The man looked at me and said After looking at the car behind him, he pulled up the crossbar and let us pass. Hagen said to me while driving: "The village is very strict about checking. We won't let you in unless you tell us who you are. I will have to go to the village to register soon!"

I smiled and said: "Okay, be careful!"

The journey of about one kilometer arrived soon. After unloading the things, Yang Shiming said goodbye and returned to the Wang family. . I walked around and looked at the so-called Qingliang Villa. It faces east and west, and is located in a mountain valley, backed by the towering eastern foothills of Tianji Mountain. Not far from the north wall of the manor, there is a winding path hidden among thorns and wormwood. The winding and hidden path in the mountain forest is the "Blindfolded Path". Legend has it that it was so dangerous that the Mountain Goddess had to be carried up the mountain blindfolded when she went up the mountain. It was named after this. It is one of the climbing paths for mountaineers. The manor is not very big, but the names of many sketching bases in the canyon are very big. In fact, they are just farmhouses. Many of the names are getting better and better, but they don’t feel like the Taihang Mountains. In comparison, I prefer the names of the big ones. Water palm, water section or well bottom, vegetable ditch and the like. The three-story building is close to the mountain village road, which is a concrete road. A pergola has been set up opposite the building. There is a simple room that is the bedroom of Hagen and his wife. Below are three or four guest rooms. Chickens are raised in the woodland in front of the guest room. The geese and hens were foraging for food under the leadership of the rooster. A few white geese strutted around and chirped loudly from time to time. To the north of the hotel, there is a dry season drinking water project built by the Linzhou Water Conservancy Bureau. The water pipes zigzagged down the mountain road. Hagen said that you can go down to the high cliff platform by following the water pipe for fifteen minutes. The water flowing out of a water pipe diagonally beside it was quite large, and a small pool appeared on the ground. I thought it would be better to raise a few fish. Very good.

This is Qingliang Manor. It was called Caitigou not long ago. There is a mountain spring with a large flow on the mountain. Because there is sufficient water for irrigation, various vegetables grow well even in drought seasons. It made people in other villages very jealous, so it was called Caitigou. Out of gratitude, the villagers raised funds to build a Dragon King Temple during the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty. It was rebuilt during the Xianfeng period, but it was destroyed when the Four Olds were destroyed, leaving only that Two broken tablets still stand next to a hastily erected low and simple house to serve as the gate of the mountain. The words on the tablets can still be distinguished: "The mountain is not high, if there are immortals, it will be famous; if the water is not deep, if there are dragons, it will be spiritual." ...". In the past, there were more than a dozen families in the village, with a population of more than 40 people. Each person had less than an acre of land on average. Moreover, much of the land was mountainous, barren and narrow, and the yield was very low. People often spent difficult years in hunger. In addition to state relief, when I was hungry, I would tie a cloth bag around my waist with persimmons, dried sweet potatoes, hawthorn slices, peppercorns, etc. in it and go out to beg for food. When others gave me some food, I would give others some mountain goods in exchange, retaining my dignity as a human being.

The so-called "blindfolded road" was originally made by villagers who climbed to the top of the mountain and exchanged a small amount of white flour for the potatoes of the villagers on the top of the mountain. At that time, one pound of white flour could be exchanged for eight pounds of potatoes. The potatoes on the mountain are delicious, a little sweet and doughy. Zhang Haigen and the others will use the replaced potatoes as seeds to plant in their own fields. However, after two or three years, they will degrade and have to be replaced again.

Speaking of the past, Hagen sighed: "Oh! You don't know how poor we were before!" I asked him doubtfully: "I found that no matter how remote the corner, there are people, why did your ancestors You want to go deep into the mountains?" "The rich go to the river, and the poor go to the mountains. There are many wild fruits in the mountains, such as wild persimmons. They are picked and dried, mixed with millet peels, and then dried in the sun. Grind it into powder and make it into fried noodles, so you can barely make a living.”

When I went for a morning run, I saw that the villages were abandoned and the abandoned houses among the grass were sad. Nowadays, persimmons, pears, No one picked the hawthorns and other mountain fruits. They rotted on the ground except for the birds that ate them and were eaten by insects. I once picked up the pears on the ground and ate them. They were very sweet! Completely different from those in Nanwan and Ma'annao!

Hagen arranged us on the second floor. He said it was not too hot and explained to us: "There are few people in the mountains and he has to go and help. It will take about three days. In addition to three meals, you can take care of it by yourself." Good on you, I can't control you anymore, I'm sorry!" Later, it turned out that he was really a real person. For three days, I could only take a shower with cold water after my morning run. It was freezing in the room, and Baogen was very cold at night! He did leave us alone, and sometimes even the food he brought back from the funeral made me feel weird! I found that he didn't even lock the door, and I thought to myself, is this what history has talked about: If you don't close your door at night, you won't pick up things on the road?

After he left, we placed our things and went to see the scenery.

The time we came here happened to be the most beautiful season in the Taihang Mountains. The scenery on the mountain is indescribably beautiful, with red, yellow, purple, green and various gray colors. The mountains near and far are majestic and magnificent, and the wind blows over them. It was a bit cool, and there were very few pedestrians and vehicles on the road, but the noise from the mountains could be heard clearly. Not far away, I couldn't resist the urge to paint. I saw that it was not even three o'clock, so I turned back to get the canvas. He planned to paint a painting with his painting tools, but Baogen walked away as he said: "Don't worry, painting is a lifelong thing, looking at the scenery and enjoying the beauty brought by nature is the most important!"

I am very fortunate to be able to sketch with Brother Baogen. I have benefited a lot from his experience, knowledge, experience, knowledge and artistic attainments! I like to paint quietly and finish my painting in one go, but he likes to smoke, drink tea and brag while painting. He also likes to harass others when he sees a beautiful woman. He always brags about women. I laughed at him: "Look at all The peaks are all breasts!”

I see how charming Qingshan is, and I don’t think Qingshan should be like this when she sees me!

All joking aside, his paintings are really good!

His paintings are very subjective, with warm and soft colors. At the beginning of each painting, he seems to be scribbling without knowing why. A boy passing by once said that he was painting blindly, which hurt him very much. heart! I kept talking about this all afternoon!

However, when his work was completed, the effect was very good. It was holistic yet rich, and general yet not empty. This deeply touched me. I was exactly the opposite of him. I started out as a holistic person. After the layout is completed, it is difficult to control the frame and enrich the picture. Compared with his method, I feel that I need to pay attention to the role of large blocks of color. Only with the support of the whole block of color can the effect be better. To solve the visual effect of the picture, if you draw everywhere, you will inevitably use an even force, which will lead to a weakening of the visual impact!

There are also issues with the way of observation and the way of performance. I also need to reflect on my own shortcomings and improve my own method based on Brother Baogen’s method. Taking the initiative to see and perform proactively should be the solution. , I also know that my own idea at this stage is to draw as finely as possible in order to exercise my ability, just as the motto of the Academy of Fine Arts says: use the subtleties to reach the broad!

In fact, being a human being and learning is like the place we are at is obviously the top of the mountain but is called the bottom of a well, and the bottom of the mountain is called Gaoyatai. Is this a contradiction? Well frog or tall thuja? Just like Baogen and I, we are both building our own world with our own efforts. Are we building walls and turning ourselves into frogs in the well? Or build a high platform to make thuja? It all depends on your own pursuit and mind.

Then again, which one is better, frog or cypress? It's always relative. If you want to see the wind and rain welcome the morning glow and look at the stars in the sky, then become Thuja. If you want to stand by a side of water and only look at one star, then become a frog in the well. Do what you want and can do, regardless of whether he is a frog. Or Bo? Besides, a cypress standing on a high cliff with no ambition and no ambition is a frog at the bottom of a well. A frog with ideas and ambitions at the bottom of a well is a cypress on a high cliff. In the final analysis, whether it is the bottom of a well or a high cliff, frogs and cypresses should not be forced. It’s so comfortable and content!

Looking at the scenery is like looking at people. Looking from a distance will always make people feel relaxed and happy, but if they get closer, they will often feel disappointed. The biggest uneasiness and fear when sketching in the Taihang Mountain Grand Canyon is the people and people who are sketching. The pollution caused by the garbage brought by tourists is in vain even if you don't throw away the garbage randomly but put it in the trash cans set up in scenic spots. Firstly, you rarely see anyone to deal with it. Secondly, even if you do, you have to find a remote place. The place fell apart. When I was running from Henan to Shanxi in the morning, I passed by Shenxian Bay at the junction of the two provinces and there was a lot of garbage dumped on the roadside. It was very sad!

Therefore, the best view is from a distance!

What about looking at people? If it is a casual acquaintance, distance will bring a good impression. If you have the opportunity to get close to a person and you can feel that he is worth cherishing after some interactions, then this person is really a friend. For example, Li Bai was invited by Wang Lun to go on a trip. When he left, he could write "The water in Peach Blossom Pond is a thousand feet deep, and it is not as good as Wang Lun's gift to me!" This shows that Wang Lun is a person worth cherishing!

Xie Baogen is such a person!

I like people who can be themselves no matter when and where they are, with whom I feel relaxed and happy without having to talk or worry. His distinctive style is like a towering mountain, which makes him more resilient and talented after going through wind and rain. But he is as silent as water, but once his enthusiasm is aroused, the roaring river is unstoppable. The wind blows, and after the rain, he calmly combs his hair, and quietly be himself again. Everyone will have joy, anger, sorrow, and seven emotions and six desires, and saints are no exception. Reality and nature are the true nature. Therefore: there are no heroes in the eyes of the servants!

Brother Baogen is such a person, worthy of trust and cherishment! Are we so-called bosom friends? I don’t know, because I don’t know if the so-called bosom friends are like us? In fact, since ancient times, close friends have been short-lived, such as Zhong Ziqi and Yu Boya, such as Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai. Therefore, it is enough to be friends, because we still want to paint for decades more!

Baogen is obsessed with his own world. Although he seems to treat his paintings casually, it should be said that he is more serious than me! People who don't understand always think that he is painting blindly, but those who know him know that his paintings are more serious. Although he does not work as hard as Li He, he often enters a state of selflessness and cannot extricate himself! What he depicts is actually the shapes and colors he sees deep in his heart. To be honest, I feel a little jealous that he can reach such a height. Fortunately, I can erase it and learn from him humbly. Maybe this is the only thing I can do. The advantage is that the world is big, there are mountains beyond the mountains, and you are happiest when you are yourself quietly.

I once had a night chat with Baogen and asked him. He said that in order to be a good person and to paint, you still have to cultivate your mind. I have experienced a lot, and I know that controlling yourself is the most important. It’s about tempering myself. I cherish what he said: “What sells well does not necessarily mean good painting, and what everyone can understand does not necessarily mean good painting!”

Baogen is worthy of me in painting. A highly respected person, but he is also a normal person. For example, he will also be greatly affected by other people's comments. Praising him will make him very happy, and criticizing him will also make him very uneasy! He emphasized cultivation. I told him that this is the gradual enlightenment of the Northern Sect. There is a qualitative difference between the gradual enlightenment and the sudden enlightenment of the Southern Sect. Mistakes may occur in gradual enlightenment, but sudden enlightenment is above the clouds, without any worries. Looking at the people who have experienced sudden enlightenment in ancient and modern times, they are very few. Most of them are cultivators who gradually become enlightened.

In life, he often has some ridiculous things happen. For example, when he was sketching this time, he only found out after returning to Beijing that the car door was unlocked when he left! He said he would fall asleep while driving on the highway and never remember the route, which made me feel like I couldn't ride in his car. Therefore, every time he goes out alone, I will worry that he may get lost. After a long time, I can’t help but call him to find him. Every time he leaves the sketching place, I will ask him to check if he has left anything behind and take the train. At that time, his luggage was arranged elsewhere by the waiter. He was restless along the way. He stood up to look at it, and ran over to touch it. In two hours, he could make more than a dozen trips. In my heart, I could only laugh at him for not practicing enough. , a bit stingy!

Is he really stingy? Actually no, I talked to him about Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs, and he immediately asked for my address and insisted on mailing me ten of them so that I could taste the authentic Yangcheng Lake hairy crabs!

This is Xie Baogen!

People are like scenery. People like Baogen are hard to come by. However, when you are lucky, you can meet them one after another like seeing mountains. Old Wu Wo has already mentioned in "Farewell", The same is true for Xu Xinxiang, a native of Anyang whom I met this time while sketching. He is also a pleasing mountain in my heart.

I told Wu Gendao on WeChat: "The person who is supposed to pick us up doesn't want to come, but people who have nothing to do with us insist on coming to pick us up!" Xu Xinxiang is such a person, and I stopped him We came to the mountain to pick us up from Anyang and hired Zhang Haigen's car to take us to Linzhou. After checking in the paintings, we met him in Linzhou and went to Anyang.

When we arrived in Anyang, he took us to visit a friend named Xie Yugang. He also painted oil, opened a studio to teach art, and achieved great results. Coincidentally, he and Baogen were from the same family, so he told Baogen that Xie Bao Gen is a descendant of Jiang Ziya. Baogen looked at me quite proudly. I laughed that he was so cunning. It turned out to be hereditary! The two felt like they had met too late, and Xie Yugang also invited Baogen to join the Xie family group!

Where can people who are destined not to meet? How can we not cherish the people we meet!

They treated us to Anyang’s delicacies, which were very special, delicious, and very satisfying! Maybe the food on the mountain was too light, and Baogen and I were both a little stuffed! After saying goodbye to Xie Yugang, I went to visit Xu Xinxiang's collection.

His collection includes calligraphy and painting, jade, wood and stone, purple sand tea sets, etc. I am an outsider in collecting, but Baogen seems to understand and likes drinking tea. It is good to listen to them talk about it. The tea table The case is made of Burmese gold camphor. Xinxiang shined it with the flashlight of his mobile phone. Sure enough, it looks very much like gold, but I think it is more like satin. It is silky, delicate, soft and comfortable. There are many natural tree knots on the case. It's raised, and it's very comfortable to rub and massage with your hands or knees! I wasn't too interested in the purple clay teapot he showed. I thought I would be nervous drinking tea with a teapot worth tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands! Instead, I was more interested in the counter-jointed wood and the dragon-subduing wood he showed. There seemed to be a lot of counter-jointed wood and it was not very precious. There are counter-jointed wooden walking sticks for sale online, but the dragon-subduing wood was much more precious. The largest known dragon subduing wood is now The tree is located in Caishi Town, Jinan. It is seventeen meters high and more than one meter in diameter. It is said that a Japanese businessman once spent hundreds of millions of yuan to buy it in the 1990s but was rejected by the villagers! This tree has medicinal effects, and its miraculous effects are described in "The General of the Yang Family", which is indeed the case!

A lot of things are happening in this world every day, and they are changing all the time. Everything is being pushed forward whether you want it or not. Many times, there is no way to decide whether it is good or bad. You can only accept reality.

Living is training!

The suffering and happiness experienced by people deep in the Taihang Mountains will be forgotten in the corner and turn into dust over time. When I was sketching in a dilapidated village, I always felt that someone or something was watching me paint. Especially on rainy days, when I was alone facing the old door of the old house, the wind and rain, and the silence. I seemed to be able to hear the sound of my thoughts spinning, and I was very afraid that someone would suddenly say to me: "You are here, come in, sit down and have a drink of water?" I even had hallucinations and asked myself, should I enter or not? Can you come out after going in? This feeling made me frightened. In the end, I didn’t dare to go deep into the old village to paint. It seemed to me that something had always happened here or there. If I walked in accidentally, I didn’t know what would happen? This unknown thing makes me uneasy!

In addition to looking around, I love chatting with locals like Hagen. When I walk around, I see a flat surface. Listening to them talk about the past makes me step into the past. Over the years, the Taihang Mountain Grand Canyon has become three-dimensional and vivid.

Hagen told me that in those days, the connection between their village and the outside world was a small trail, which was extremely dangerous. They did not dare to go down the mountain in rainy and snowy days. There were women with small feet in the past who had never gone down the mountain in their lives. We applied to the government to build a wider road in the 1990s, which makes walking much easier! As time goes by, I know how hard I should step on that stone when walking on the road. My legs are full of strength. Now I drive everywhere and don’t dare to walk on mountain roads. A dirt road was built more than ten years ago that can barely carry a car. It was a road that was dug out of the mountains with an ax and a hand, and the wall-hanging highway is a representative example.

A few years ago, construction machinery became available, and after widening and reconstruction, the current concrete road was built. People came to the road, and the goods were pulled out. Their living conditions have changed a lot. As the saying goes, if you want to get rich, build the road first!

Nowadays, governments at all levels are increasing their efforts to promote poverty alleviation and have immigrated villagers from the mountains to the county. Villagers living in the mountains have returned farmland to forests, and raising pigs and sheep is prohibited for the purpose of protecting the forests. And protect water sources, but is it nice that no one lives on the mountain anymore? Villages disappearing maybe a mistake!

Linzhou used to be short of water, especially in the Taihang Mountains. Xu Xinxiang once told me that the bride price in the Taihang Mountains used to be not property but water - two tanks of water! It seems ridiculous now, but at that time it required the whole village to search for spoonfuls one by one!

The aunt I had lunch with when I was sketching in Nanwan Village left a deep impression on me. When I talked to her, I realized that she must have been an activist in the past. She knew the names of previous leaders and who picked whom. In class, I asked her if she knew Yang Gui? She said in a reverent tone: "How can I forget him? I have seen him before!"

Yang Gui was only twenty-six years old when he became the secretary of the Lin County Party Committee. He and his generation used their own His hands created a miracle - the Red Flag Canal! At the same time, he also established a monument for himself! On the way to Linzhou, Hagen pointed to the ditch on the roadside and said, "You can't erect a monument while Yang Gui is still alive. Once he leaves this world, we will definitely erect a monument for him!"

In fact, The monument has been erected - it is erected in the heart of people's mouth!

Farewell to Taihang Mountain, I took away thirty-eight sketches and left behind my best wishes for Taihang Mountain! The day before I left happened to be the Double Ninth Festival. When I woke up in the morning, I didn’t find the dogwood tree. I just took my flute and walked on the slightly cool mountain road in the morning sunshine. I looked at the distant mountains and nearby trees and sighed at the autumn trees. It's difficult to withstand the autumn wind, but occasionally I stop to play a song. The mountains are high and the water is long. The sound of the flute is full of sorrow for separation, but more of blessings and expectations! Bless the mountains, rivers and trees, bless the high sky and flowing clouds! Bless those who work hard! Blessings to my beloved family and friends! Bless my beloved earth!

I hope everything goes well, and I will not forget the mountain. I hope the mountain will still remember me when I come back, and I will definitely climb the "blindfolded road" to Tianji Peak to look at the mountains and the distance!

Picturesque Jiangshan 17.10.30. Dongsi, Beijing