Many parents want to get their
children into hobbies which
they hope can yield big payoff
in the future. But most children
will not persist with hobbies once
they lose interest. Gu Yunqi
shares with us how she picked
up her hobby and gets the
hang of it.
When I was eight years old, I started to learn calligraphy and tra-ditional Chinese painting during my free time. At the beginning, like many other children, I just treated them as my personal hobbies and didn't put in much of my effort. It was quite a coincidence that my parents and I discovered how much my hobbies had attracted me.
One day I had a fever and was too sick to do anything at all.However, I insisted on going to my art lessons. Though I was young and did not re-ally understand much, I felt I would get very sad if I missed the lessons. Then my parents and I came to real-ize that I was really fond of tradi-tional Chinese painting. Therefore, they began to be serious about find-ing me a painting teacher.
Later on I took painting lessons at weekends and no matter how busy I was, I never said I wanted to quit learning. Day by day,I was able to find a balance between the ex-tracurricular lessons and my study at school. Not only my parents, but also my teachers give me their sin-cere support and encouragement.
However, things did not go on so well at first. Learning calligraphy once gave me a headache.The brushes were not easy to control and I really hated my writing at first. I even thought I did not have the talent to learn it well. Anyhow, I still liked it and after I practiced for some time,I could write the Chi-nese characters well,including seal script,official script, regular script and running script.I was filled with satisfaction.
During the past few years, several artists have given me important help and guidance. Among them is a famous painter in Suzhou's Xuk-ou Town, a very helpful and kind person. He never criticizes me even when I paint terribly. Instead, he tries to look for every opportunity to praise me and encourage me to practice more. Because of this, I am getting more and more confident. I think he is the mentor who has in-troduced me to the art field.
I have received many prizes and have some of my works published. Yet, I don't think they are the most important. In my opinion, painting and calligraphy are my favorite hob-bies. They make me feel relaxed and satisfied. Although I am a Grade 9 student and spend all the weekdays at school, I won't give up my hob-bies. For me,practising calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting are not a burden, but a great enjoy-ment.