Sugar figures and sugar paintings are different. Sugar paintings are drawn, while sugar figures are blown out.
The craftsman of the sugar blower mixes maltose into syrup and squeezes it while blowing.
Just a small ball of maltose can blow out various animals and characters.
Although the color is camel yellow, which is not as gorgeous as the face, it is unique.
In this craft, how to boil sugar is not difficult, but it tests the artist's patience.
Because the syrup is very hot to the touch after it is boiled. It will cause blisters if it is left in the hand for a while.
Once the candy blower artist holds the candy in his hand, he needs to keep squeezing it and use special techniques to cool down the candy.
There is no one who does this without getting burnt scars on their hands.
Moreover, during the blowing process, the opportunity for shaping is often only a few dozen seconds, after which the syrup will harden.
Therefore, the perfect presentation of any kind of style requires artists to practice repeatedly.
They had done it hundreds or thousands of times in private before they became familiar with it.
The sugar blowing artist hired by Ning Weimin is named Zong. He is almost fifty years old. To be honest, he is not very innovative.
Ning Weimin originally wanted Master Zong to make a breakthrough and play a fashionable image like Leo the Lion, Astro Boy or Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, so as to be in line with international standards.
But after practicing for a long time, I still can't master the basic shapes. None of these cartoon characters can be shown to people.
This is far inferior to that of Uncle Cui who can create modern sugar paintings on his own.
However, Master Zong is indeed a veteran who has been practicing art since childhood.
He can do the most widely circulated traditional themes in Beijing, which are loved by both adults and children: "rats stealing oil", "monkeys having diarrhea", "snipe and clams fighting", "weasels pulling chickens", and "twelve zodiac signs"
very beautiful.
It is much better than those masters who become monks halfway and can only make a treasure gourd, play a deer or a pig, and then come out to defraud children of their money.
In addition, some traditional themes are particularly interesting and interesting, and his popularity is actually not inferior to that of Uncle Cui.
He was surrounded by Chinese and foreign tourists who were reluctant to leave and watched with great interest.
Let’s just call this “rat stealing oil”.
The mouse made by Master Zong is sitting on the sesame oil stall, leaning down, greedily looking at the sesame oil in the altar, with a salivating expression.
The shape is lifelike and vivid.
There is also this "monkey diarrhea".
The most interesting thing is that after the master blows out a little monkey, he also pours sugar syrup into the monkey's empty stomach.
Then he pinched a small sugar bowl under the monkey's butt, then blew a small spoon and handed it to the customer.
A knowledgeable customer only needs to poke the monkey's butt with a spoon, and the syrup will flow into the sugar bowl.
After playing, you can eat the candy and the candy bowl one by one.
Of course, we have to admit that thirty years later, the main reason why sugar paintings can still be seen and people who make sugar paintings are rare is the hygiene problem.
In fact, even now, many parents are unwilling to buy candy figures for their children.
I just feel that this kind of thing is blown out by artists with their mouths, so it will inevitably be contaminated with spit and will be unclean.
Fortunately, Ning Weimin had the foresight to do this, and he introduced a new and improved way for customers to blow, with Master Zong responsible for directing and pinching.
In this way, not only will the hygiene problem be solved, customers will no longer be resistant to it, but it will also give people the experiential joy of participating.
You must know that under the command of Master Zong, the customer who can keep the blowing force as even as possible will have the most beautiful style.
This competitive sense of achievement makes this project even more interesting.
So not only people in the capital are willing to buy Candy Man, but even foreigners have become excited supporters.
The price of one yuan is enough to buy two candy figures on weekdays.
But here, everyone feels it’s worth it.
Almost everyone has a monkey or a sugar cow.
Is this strange?
Now that we’ve talked about sugar figures, we have to talk about dough sculptures.
For this craft, people in the capital call it noodle maker.
You need to grind the glutinous rice into flour, knead the flour and water until soft, and use pigments to make it colorful.
Then, through the skillful hands of the artists, they are transformed into characters in various costume dramas.
Due to the strong plasticity of the material, there are many kneading tools and relatively ample production time.
The finished dough figures are far more exquisite and beautiful than sugar figures and sugar paintings.
There are two schools of the most famous noodle artists in Beijing, namely "Mianrenlang" and "Mianrentang".
"Mianrenlang" is from Haidian. His skills have never been passed on to others, and he has always followed the path of folk art.
"Noodle Soup" is from Tongzhou, but the second generation successor Tang Zibo blazed a new path. In 1956, he was accepted by the Academy of Arts and Crafts and established his own studio.
From then on, this old man not only spread his branches, but also recruited many disciples.
You can also be free from the worries of life, create with peace of mind, and become an academic who devotes yourself to the study of dough sculpture art.
The dough sculptor Ning Weimin invited to sit in the west side hall was named Dong, and she was also a woman. She was the only student selected in the first batch of "Tang Zibo Studio" recruitment nationwide.
Because she liked dough sculpting, she worked hard in this area and learned the true "noodle soup" technique. After graduation, she stayed in school to teach dough sculpting.
What is particularly worth mentioning is that due to her systematic art training, she has the shaping ability of Western sculpture, the aesthetic taste of ancient Eastern countries, and the unique skill of noodle soup.
Therefore, the made-up faces are no longer just something for children to play with, but have become real works of art.
Not only is the image novel, the expression and posture realistic, but it is also free of sticks and can be admired standing on a wooden board.
To put it bluntly, he is no longer a face person, he has simply become a "face god".
If we put it aside, in the old age when everyone is worshiping gods and praying to Buddha, these things are more than enough to be offered as offerings and receive incense.
So today she randomly created the Monkey King, the Bull Demon King, the Iron Fan Princess, the Red Boy, Lu Bu, Diao Chan, Bodhidharma, and Chang'e.
Don't look at it, it's all just work, not a carefully considered work.
But the characters are all lifelike, full of vitality, well-dressed, and have both form and spirit, enough to support the high price of ten yuan each.
Especially foreign cartoon characters such as Leo, Astro Boy, Ryuko Taro, Flower Fairy, Pinocchio, Mickey Mouse, and Donald Duck.
Even though it is very difficult for the master who makes the candy man, it is actually the easiest for Mr. Dong, who makes the dough man, because they are all simplified shapes.
Teacher Dong can pinch one in a minute or two, and its accuracy and delicacy are no less than the official figures.
Moreover, the selling price of cartoon characters is much cheaper, three yuan each.
So don’t say that the locals in the capital were surprised when they saw it, but they were willing to pay the money.
Foreigners have never seen it before. They don’t buy one at a time, but several at a time.
To be honest, it would be great if Teacher Dong was employed by Disneyland.
I guess he can make whatever the customer wants thanks to his quick skills.
She can become famous in one fell swoop, appear on TV, appear in newspapers, and become famous all over the world.
What a pity, there are so many talented people in China, who will let her teach in the capital?
Foreigners are so ignorant that they have no idea that ancient Eastern countries have such miraculous modeling techniques.
There is no chance for the world to know her.
But even so, she was able to steal the show today, because an unexpected situation soon occurred at the scene.
There was actually a foreign woman who was similar in age to her, in her thirties, and asked the accompanying translator to ask her if she could create a face in her own image on the spot.
Needless to say, Teacher Dong naturally took it as someone who wanted to test his abilities.
You Qi looked at the translator who was accompanying him. He was holding a lot of things in his hands.
So without saying anything, he started pinching him in public.
In less than twenty minutes, a foreign woman wearing a fur coat and high heels appeared vividly in her hands.
The eyebrows and eyes picked out with bamboo needles not only match the appearance of this beautiful foreign woman, but Teacher Dong also used some improvisation.
She asked the person wearing the ring to hold up a bunch of large candied haws.
In the other hand, he also held a sand swallow kite.
This looks like he just visited the Temple of Heaven New Year Garden Party.
For this, the people watching all praised it and raised their thumbs up one after another.
The foreign woman herself was even more happy when she saw it.
He took out a fifty-yuan foreign exchange coupon on the spot and was willing to pay five times the price to buy the noodle shop.
Later, he affectionately pulled over Teacher Dong and insisted on taking a photo with her as a souvenir.
In the words of Beijing people, this is called Bafener!
Finally, when it comes to earring drilling, this craft actually has nothing to do with folk customs and artistry.
Mainly because Ning Weimin considered that the filigree inlay factory, as an earlier gold and silver processing enterprise, had some jewelry.
Nowadays, gold and silver jewelry have become popular in society.
Therefore, a practical massage was launched specifically to consider the needs of contemporary young women.
As expected, this campaign received strong welcome from fashionable women as soon as it was launched.
There were so many people asking for earrings, and the filigree inlay factory also sold a lot of gold and silver jewelry.
What is this called?
This is called being good at capturing social hot spots and leading the trend of the times.
In short, although most of the east and west side halls of this prayer altar sell high-end products, they have successfully avoided the indifferent feeling of being aloof and repelling people thousands of miles away.
On the contrary, it is very friendly and popular.
What is particularly rare is that it combines education with entertainment, subtly implanting the aesthetics of traditional culture into the hearts of Chinese and foreign tourists.
Moreover, in terms of interactivity and participation, the threshold is very low and it is universal.
Far more than the costume photography in front of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, it effectively makes up for the shortcomings of other projects.
It really makes people who come here feel surprised and gain a lot.
Like these three people from the Temple of Earth, they were also immersed in it without knowing it.
Surprisingly, just by looking at it, I gave up my sense of worry and was infected by the surrounding atmosphere, becoming silly and happy.
Until they walked out of the praying altar, the deputy director and the driver were still discussing whether it was better to be a candy man or a face-to-face man.
Even the secretary was thinking hard about whether he should buy a pot of Ruilan to take back when he left or a pot of citron.
It was as if they were hypnotized. They had long forgotten to wonder who the master behind the scenes was, and they had forgotten the jealousy and unwillingness in their hearts. They were just like ordinary tourists.
This cannot but be said that our life is indeed rich in interest and the charm of traditional culture is too powerful.
But is this the end?
Is this all there is to all the wonderful event planning in the Temple of Heaven Park’s north and east routes?
No! The "lantern riddles" activity in the corridor connected to the Praying for Grain Altar, and the catering services provided by Beishen Kitchen, are truly innovative, unique and lively.