Shanghai Daily news

A four-generation family in Fengjing Town, the most suburban village of Jinshan District, earns its living painting, not farming.
With the ongoing urbanization, many farmers in the town left their land to find jobs in factories.
But the Chen family has turned their backs to the increasing number of producing lines and buried their heads in a painting studio, where colorful works hang everywhere, showing farmers' simple but harmonious lives.
"Though we are under great pressure to make a living by selling pictures, we love painting and are willing to take the risk," said Chen Xiu.
Chen is one of the family's third generation as well as a 38-year-old female painter, who recently won a silver-prize at a Chinese - Japanese calligraphy and painting competition.
The family painting tradition traces back to Chen's father - Chen Fulin, who used to paint after a weary day working on the farm.
"Painting is a good way to father to release his feelings. It excited him even after the tiring farm work," said Chen Xiu.
Under her father's influence, Chen and Chen Huifang, her sister, became addicted to painting. They picked up some comic strips that their father carefully collected when he was young, then copied their favorite heroes or heroines on paper. Thus, the painting magic began to take effect on the sisters and make them unable to drop their brushes.
"Different from sketches, our paintings or so called farmer paintings should not be valued by the detailed accuracy. We use color to show what we feel rather than what we have seen and we draw the pictures following our feelings," said Chen.
Every member of the family, including the Chen sisters' grandmother takes part.
Their pictures, which are composed with large, neat color blocks, may seem naive when taking a near look at their single character. But they are the right style to show the rustic rural life.
In one of Chen's award-winning works, she used naive painting skills to depict a simple beaming family reunion on the eve before Spring Festival, which is regarded as the beginning of the Chinese Lunar New Year.
In that piece, she dotted a few white flakes to show the cold weather outside the house, while painting more than half of the paper red to show the warm festival atmosphere inside her family's home.
"The sweet festival eve in my childhood still haunts me. It was not until one day I decided to record it down and thus spent more than 10 days completing it," Chen said.
Having given many interviews to the media, Chen still looked frank and zesty. Not a single trace of impatience showed on her face, nor did she give people a feeling of feint warmth that some people use to add their public points.
"To be frank, we are really under great pressure when making all of our income from painting. Nowadays, more people has joined in the farmer painting group and the competition is fierce," Chen said.
Last year, Chen spent 120,000 yuan (US$14,458) to set up a painting studio along a creek in the conserved old Fengjing Town. She opened the studio to promote their family paintings.
Another farmer's painting studio opened next door, attracting visitors with its connections to the district's painting institute.
"I have never gone to the institute to get professional training. A real folk art is originated from people's practice instead of theories. If we accept the institute's education, our paintings will no longer be farmer paintings," Chen said.
"To sell out our paintings, we draw what people need most in their hearts. Now, most people live in a quick pace and what they demand is a peaceful and family-like land."