Javier and Steph study Art in China!

As the weather becomes characteristically Guangzhou in the summertime, we are being reminded of our first days here in September. One minute the sun is so bright, everyone has their umbrellas out to block it, the next minute it is pouring rain and thunder and lightning are directly overhead. We also know that our time here is almost over. One year! Time goes by quickly! So our last couple of weeks have been spent finishing what we can in the studio, spending time with our friends here, and packing. Oh and of course we had a little going away party!

Pirates of the Caribbean 4 with Dream and Yan Yan!

3D glasses

Day out with Fay

Marco, a guy studying at the old campus from Austria, his last night in Guangzhou!

Loft 345

One of my favorite views at school

Nothing cools you down like a watermelon from the fridge!

7 11? No wait

Xiaozhoucun

Steph and Javier

Cherry's Ipad is fun

Nearby Daniel's studio in Xiaouzhou

Studio pics! Javier at work

Steph painting

Chinese painting time

The roof of our studio building

Steph

Steph painting

Javier at work

Sunset

Love our school!

The Guangzhou TV tower all lit up at night

Friends

So thats all, back in California soon!

June is sadly our last month here in China. Lately we have been beginning to pack, finishing our last few paintings and spending time with our friends. The weather has become Gunagzhou hot! Also, the Dragon Boat Festival was last weekend which is a really interesting holiday!

The holiday is based on the story of a famous Chinese poet who was so distraught over the future of China, he threw himself into the ocean and drowned. To keep the fish from eating him, the people threw zhongzi(traditional rice cakes wrapped in bamboo leaves) in the sea. Every year zhongzi are eaten in memory of him, and beautiful Dragon Boats are decorated and raced. We got so see dragon boats in Nanting and in Shamian Island.

The temple nearby Nanting

Javier painting

Steph and Dragon Boats

Dragon Face

Also, there were graduation photos being taken here at GAFA! So exciting! Many of our frinds are graduating.

Javier and Hai Bo with flowers for our Studio 1 graduates

Steph and Cherry

Oil Painting Department

Javier and Regina

Steph and Yan Yan

The Beach Crew

Then we visited our professor, Daniel Krause at his studio.

Dinner with Edward and the Foreign Affairs office friends, Javier Marco and Edward

Lunch with the families of the children that Steph tutors

Zhongzi

Zhongzi everywhere!

Gafa old campus, lovely sky

Dragon Boat race at Shamian Island

Tea

Dumpling dinner! Steph and Jo Jo with the greatest veggie dumplings!

Back to school

GAFA

Frank working on a sculpture of Javier

boats on the river

A cool sculpture installation on campus

Preparing canvases for our last works here

latest Steph painting

The view in the evening from Studio 1

Well that is all for now, happy Dragon Boat Festival to everyone and we will see you soon!

Hey interested readers!

We are now finished with our show and back to the usual. It was in the gallery for one week. We started a Chinese Painting class with a wonderful teacher. We are studying traditional ink techniques with a focus on landscape. Today we went out to Xiaozhou, the artist's village, to paint.

Also I wanted to update today on the other things we have been doing this month, Nanting of course and some fun studio pictures. Enjoy!

It's getting hot again! Javier and a popsicle

another view of Nanting

Lovely view from our studio in the evening.

Steph

Javier

Painting Frank

landscape painting

Nanting

Cherry in her studio! Everyone is preparing for the graduation show

Painting Yan Yan in the studio

yay!

Chinese painting class

Setting up in the museum for the 2011 graduation show!

Javier and Soar checking out the fashion design works in the library

The fashion show of the graduating senior works, impressive designs

Graduation show opening! Many visitors!

Soar and her painting

Juan and his amazing animation

Cherry and her chairs "Beautiful Legs" collection

Javier experiencing one of the design works

Frank's birthday! He made this life size Iron Man!

Sculpture department

Frank and Bobo

Battle of the Bands show at the biggest university on our island

Steph and Daxy

This is Elaine, a talented young fashion design major, her and Steph worked together on her project.

Xiaozhou villae painting

Lovely lunch!

See you in June!

So the show went off pretty well! Of course we were rushing to get everything done on time, but I think it turned out great. We spent a long time organizing and hanging it, and trying to make it professional. The president of the college stopped by and many of our friends and professors. Everyone had a great time!

The Xin Song Yuan Gallery from outside, actually a nice space!

Us with the President of GAFA

Our good friend Yan Yan had the idea to print stickers with some of our paintings on them, we also bought a few litle books to give out to our friends. Here we are giving one to the president.

A little book featuring Javier's little watercolor landscape

Javier and Soar

Frank sports a sticker with our show poster and the adress for this blog!

The designer with his wonderful posters.

Flowers!

Steph and Soar with Steph's tiny painting

Cherry and Alvin!

Professor He and Edward came to show their love!

Cherry and Javier

Writing on our commemorative piece of canvas

Our guestbook

So that is it for our opening! It was a fun time, we are so grateful for the opportunity to be here at GAFA and the putting together the show and spending time showing our work from this year and with the wonderful friends we made here really puts things into perspective. Sadly, our time here is almost up, but we are glad we made it to China.

This past couple of weeks have been full of things to do preparing for our show titled "Those Americans". Today is the last day, we need to install everything in the gallery and make sure we have everything we need. Thanks to all our friends here at GAFA I think the show will be great! We have lots of support and fun plans for opening night! I wish everyone from home could be here too, but I hope I can have lots of great pictures to show soon.

See you soon!!