Folk Painting
The best village in Vietnam to visit before Tet, Lunar New Year
Dong Ho Paintings
Dong Ho Painting or Vietnamese woodblock prints refers to a Vietnamese folk Art originating in Dong Ho Village, Song Ho Commune, Thuan Thanh County of Bac Ninh Province (north of Hanoi). It is one of the most popular Vietnamese folk Arts.
It was a “must have” of every Vietnamese household for Tet, Vietnamese New Year.
The prints in Dong Ho are made with local wood and paper. The paint is also made from local organic materials and is applied to wood and pressed on paper. The process is repeated with different colors
Tet painting
You may have seen them before. They adorn the walls of Vietnamese restaurants everywhere in the world and Vietnamese overseas hang them up as Lunar New Year approaches. In Vietnam, production of these folk paintings peaks right before Tet as merchants stock up in anticipation of heavy customer demand. These paintings are traditionally used to decorate homes for the New Year festival.
Producing Dong Ho paintings is a trade of time-honoured tradition of the village of Dong Ho. It is Dong Ho paintings that make Dong Ho village famous across Vietnam as well as in the world. In fact, only Dong Ho village’s people can turn out real Dong Ho paintings.
The village of Dong Ho is in Ha Bac, the province just north of Hanoi. Come there, besides impressive paintings, you can enjoy beautiful rural scenery and fresh air of the Vietnam’s coutryside. However, whenever people mention to Dong Ho village, first of all they remember Dong Ho paintings.
The production of Dong Ho paintings is rather sophisticated. It can be described as follows
The print making process
The prints are made by brushing paint made of local material onto carved wood blocks, then pressing the blocks on paper. The print is left to dry after each color is applied before another color is added. Three to five colors are used to make each print.
The wood blocks
The wooden blocks are made from the thi tree, a soft fibrous wood. The block is used as a printing plate, with one block for each color, print and size. A big shelf in the printing room holds hundreds of wood blocks. Among them, some are 200 years old. Wood block carving is an art handed down within the family by the master to his children. In the village, there are some families have been making prints for many generations. Coming to visit Dong Ho village, you can see many sons and several daughters working, learning the craft from their fathers and carrying on the family tradition.
The paper
The prints are all done on traditional giay gio paper made from the bark fiber of the do tree. This tree grows in the northwestern part of the country. The sheath is stripped off the tree trunk and soaked in a pond for a month. It is then dipped in limewater for two weeks, followed by a wash. After ten days or so the pulp is poured into frames which are stacked for several more days. Then the stacks are arranged on a wall to dry, and pressed smooth with a stone mortar.
The paper is coated with a pulverized powder made from shellfish found in the Hai Phong area. The shellfish is brought to the village and coated with mud for two years. The entire mixture is then ground up by stone mortar and put into a water tank to be filtered and pressed into balls that weigh about a kilo and they are left to dry on the walls or floors. They are then used as needed and mixed with glue. This mixture is called diep powder.
The brush
The prints are painted with a beautiful brush made of spruce. The thet brushes are made from dried spruce leaves bound together. These brushes are made in a village not far away and come in various sizes. The leaves are pounded with salt water and a hammer to make the brush tip soft enough and are bound together and flattened at the top.
The paint
The Folk Art simplicity has strong and simple contours with bright colors that are made from dried bamboo leaves, the local fruits, flowers and leaves. The paint is mixed in large earthenware pots. The colors are mixed by hand and each artisan has his or her own formula. The red paint is made from soi son, a soft stone that is found in the region. The blue paint is made from indigo leaves found in the minority areas. Both of these paints must be soaked in an earthenware pot for a couple of years and strained of all impurities.
Tet painting
Yellow paint usually comes from the sophora tree whose flowers are as small as rice kernels. The flowers are roasted in a pan until they turn brownish-yellow. When water is added and the mixture is boiled, the yellow color appears. The liquid is filtered and the pulp thrown away. The violet color comes from the mong toi fruit. Black paint comes from the bamboo tree. When the bamboo trees shed their leaves, they are burned to a cinder, then sprinkled with water and put in a glazed clay jar half filled with water. After a year or more the water is strained and the black ink is ready for use after being mixed with glutinous rice glue.
Grinding glutinous rice into a fine powder and mixing it with water makes the rice glue. As the rice powder settles to the bottom, the clear water is skimmed off every day, to prevent the contents from fermenting.
The stories each print tells a story of historical significance. The prints are used to carry on the cultural history of Vietnam, passed on at the welcoming of each Lunar New Year to younger generations through story telling. The themes of happiness, good luck, fertility, good fortune and prosperity are common. They celebrate the optimism for the coming New Year.
Every year, when Tet comes closer the village’s people are busy producing Tet prints, transporting them to Hanoi for sale to wholesalers who distribute them all over the country, keeping the tradition alive. Dong Ho paintings are still something that cannot lack in Vietnam’s Tet. And many foreigners like these paintings and often buy them as souvenirs for their.
This article written by Lanh Nguyen from Vietnam Vacation
For original article, please visit:
http://vacations-vietnam.com/lastest-travel-news/the-best-village-in-vietnam-to-visit-before-tet-lunar-new-year.html
Vietnam Vacation
Vietnam Adventure Vacation
Vietnam Heritage Tour
mixed media folk art angel painting on wood, part 1 of 4
|
|
Hog Wild Twirling Spaghetti Fork $7.99 Master the Marinara Meal — Everyone knows that twirling your noodles is the best way to eat spaghetti, linguini, capellini, and all long noodles. But, twirling itself is an art and many can’t conquer the technique. This fork is the spaghetti solution – simply press a button and it does all the work for you. — A motorized metal pronged end automatically winds up the pasta on the end of your fork… |
|
|
Wooden Spice Set Matryoshka (Nesting Doll) – Khokhloma Painting A set of spice holders! Made in Semyonov!… |
|
|
S. Fernleaf Designs Folk Art Paintings Dogs – 2 Dogs White Bird Pets Animals Cute Original Folk Art Painting – Mugs 2 Dogs White Bird Pets Animals Cute Original Folk Art Painting Mug is new. Why drink coffee out of an ordinary mug when an imprinted mug is so much cooler? Microwave safe, FDA approved. Image is printed on both sides of the mug. Dishwasher use is not recommended…. |
|
|
Say I Am You $6.04 The Weepies are a duo of songwriters Deb Talan and Steve Tannen. How can one not help but be delighted when two such similar sound names align with one another? Perfectly matched, the thirteen songs are quiet but insistent, with lyrics full of pop smarts and poetic depth. Narratives, whether fragmented or direct, empower most of the songs, giving even first-person vantage points a solid foundation… |
|
|
Joni Mitchell – Woman of Heart and Mind: A Life Story $9.06 One of the great talents of her or anyone else’s generation gets the royal treatment with this superb two-hour (with bonus material) documentary. It’s all here (via interviews, including conversations past and present with Mitchell herself, photos, generous helpings of concert footage, and more): her Saskatchewan childhood, her lovers, her painting, her reunion with the daughter she had left behin… |
|
|
Shakuhachi – The Japanese Flute $2.97 No Description AvailableNo Track Information AvailableMedia Type: CDArtist: JAPANTitle: SHAKUHACHI-THE JAPANESE FLUTEStreet Release Date: 05/14/1991… |
|
|
Handmade Wildflowers Landscape Painting Oil Painting $36.99 Handmade Wildflowers Landscape Painting Oil Painting |
|
|
Handmade Cloudy Winter Landscape Painting Oil Painting $42.99 Handmade Cloudy Winter Landscape Painting Oil Painting |
|
|
Handmade Sunset And Stream Landscape Painting Oil Painting $45.99 Handmade Sunset And Stream Landscape Painting Oil Painting |
|
|
Handmade Trees In The Snow Landscape Painting Oil Painting $39.99 Handmade Trees In The Snow Landscape Painting Oil Painting |
|
|
Handmade Cabin In The Snow Landscape Painting Oil Painting $36.99 Handmade Cabin In The Snow Landscape Painting Oil Painting |
|
|
Handmade Farmyard Winter Landscape Painting Oil Painting $42 Handmade Farmyard Winter Landscape Painting Oil Painting |
|
|
America and the Sea: Treasures from the Collections of Mystic Seaport $45 The history of America is largely a history of the sea. This marvelous book features a selection of more than two hundred of the finest objects from Mystic Seaport that tell the history of America and its maritime heritage. Presented with accessible texts and beautiful reproductions are masterpieces of maritime painting, exquisite photographs of classic yachts and powerboat races, and diverse prints and watercolors. Unique examples of American folk art-yarn paintings, reverse paintings on glass, sailors’ valentines, shadowbox ship models, and ships in bottles-are also explored in detail, along with watercraft, scrimshaw, ship figureheads, and silver yachting trophies. Essays written by distinguished experts describe the individual forms of expression, discuss the artists and craftsmen, and offer commentary on the ways in which America’s maritime history is interwoven with its economic development and cultural history. Elegantly designed and lavishly produced, “America and the Sea “offers intriguing new evidence of the indisputable relevance of maritime history to American life and art. |
|
|
American Art: History and Culture, Revised First Edition $119 American Art: History and Culture is a thorough and engaging chronology of American art,including painting,sculpture,architecture,decorative arts,photography,folk art,and graphic arts. Wayne Craven presents art and artists within the context of their times,including insights into the intellectual,spiritual,and political environment. Along the way Craven charts the growth of a distinctly American art culture. The resulting book is as much a history of American culture as of American art. |
|
|
American Art: History and Culture, Revised First Edition $119 American Art: History and Culture is a thorough and engaging chronology of American art,including painting,sculpture,architecture,decorative arts,photography,folk art,and graphic arts. Wayne Craven presents art and artists within the context of their times,including insights into the intellectual,spiritual,and political environment. Along the way Craven charts the growth of a distinctly American art culture. The resulting book is as much a history of American culture as of American art. |
|
|
American Folk Art $19 Beginning with that most basic American institution, the family, this book investigates the varied arts of home and community. Before the invention of the camera, portraiture–not just the province of the wealthy–was practiced in the forms of painting and silhouette cutting; domestic and regional scenes were also memorialized on canvas in genre paintings. |
|
|
American Folk Art for Kids: With 21 Activities $16.95 Drawing on the natural folk art tendencies of children, who love to collect buttons, bottle caps, shells, and Popsicle sticks to create beautiful, imperfect art, this activity guide teaches kids about the history of this organic art and offers inspiration for them to create their own masterpieces. The full breadth of American folk art is surveyed, including painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and textiles from the 17th century through today. Making bubblegum wrapper chains, rag dolls, bottle cap sculptures, decoupage boxes, and folk paintings are just a few of the activities designed to bring out the artist in every child. Along the way kids learn about the lives of Americans throughout history and their casual relationships to everyday art as they cut stencils, sew needlepoint samplers, draw calligraphy birds, and design quilts. Important folk artists such as the last surviving Shakers, the legendary Grandma Moses, and the Reverend Howard Finster are also explored in sidebars throughout the book. |
|
|
American Folk Art for Kids: With 21 Activities $11.95 Drawing on the natural folk art tendencies of children, who love to collect buttons, bottle caps, shells, and Popsicle sticks to create beautiful, imperfect art, this activity guide teaches kids about the history of this organic art and offers inspiration for them to create their own masterpieces. The full breadth of American folk art is surveyed, including painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and textiles from the 17th century through today. Making bubblegum wrapper chains, rag dolls, bottle cap sculptures, decoupage boxes, and folk paintings are just a few of the activities designed to bring out the artist in every child. Along the way kids learn about the lives of Americans throughout history and their casual relationships to everyday art as they cut stencils, sew needlepoint samplers, draw calligraphy birds, and design quilts. Important folk artists such as the last surviving Shakers, the legendary Grandma Moses, and the Reverend Howard Finster are also explored in sidebars throughout the book. |