Painting in Hunan

My painting trip to China has just come to an end. I ended up getting invited to paint in a small village in Hunan where the red army hid out fifty years ago! The area has very characteristic mountain shapes and has been turned into some kind of plein air painters retreat.

I found myself part of a group with 30 university instructors, their students, and several well known painters from Beijing. The group included two of China's most famous contemporary landscape painters Wang KeJu, and Chen HeXi.

One of the nice things about the place was that all the nice painting spots had special shelters built so the painters can shelter from the sun and rain! Now that's what I call an "artist friendly" place!