"Summer morning in Zhouzhuang" by Beth Bathe

"Summer morning in Zhouzhuang", 6 x 8, oil on linen panel

Finally, here is the first of my paintings done in China. In September I traveled with Qiang Huang and 14 other artists to paint in China. You can visit our group online photo album of our trip here. This painting was painted on the third day after we arrived. After spending two nights in Shanghai we made our way to the ancient water town of Zhouzhuang. The whole town is a museum, and we had the rare opportunity of staying within the ancient town in a guest house that was over 800 years old. This is a place you see very few foreign visitors. We were given a map of the village, but it is all in Chinese so we all had to figure out where we were... On the second morning several of us ventured out along one of the canals to paint. Perhaps, we were the only plein air painting group ever to visit the village because we attracted quite a bit of attention. Many local villagers and Chinese tourists took pictures of and with us like they had never seen westerners before. We were a new attraction! Later in the morning we also ended up right in the middle of shooting a soap opera on one of the bridges...it was a very busy morning in Zhouzhang! Anyway, here is my first painting of one of the many bridges and canals. I will be posting more of my China paintings in the coming days!

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