Tai Hen Shan sketching trip

So this a post of my week or so long stay in Tai Hen Shan in the Henan province. every year the classes go to some cool place in china for a month to go sketching or whatever the class is. Its a pretty rigorous schedule, no weekends and you pretty much work all day long. We stayed in a Hostel so it was roughing it a little. Though it was awesome to pay 4 dollars a day for room board and three meals. the meals were pretty repetitive and was pretty much all vegetables and little meat. The village we stayed at was called Guoliang and until about 30 years ago was all but completely cut off from the outside world, until some villagers built a path up the cliffs. now its a huge tourist spot for Chinese people. The village still only consists of maybe 200 people and then all of the art students at the hostels, it was a really small village. I think that i might have been the one of the only americans to ever go there, which was a blessing and a curse. the people there looked at me like i was an alien, but cause i was American i got to have nice meals and drink with local dignitaries. I also learned a ton about painting as i was thrown into a situation where i needed to draw and then paint a really complex tree, i gave myself a crash course in sketching. ill post my paintings when i get some time to shoot them. until then here are a bunch of my photos and some notes from my journal for each day.

Day 1:
-this place is a huge beautiful valley
-decently sketchy bus ride up a cliff path
-im sad i can only stay here for about a week
-wo mei hua hao shou- i have no words

epic view from near our hostel
Mo Li Jai, Da Lou, and Chow Mie
most of my classmates
yeah they just raise the goats on the hillside behind the hostel


Day 2:

pretty nice view to wake up to. this is the view from on top of our hostel


a mid afternoon hike through the orchards
Li Ping hiding from the sun
the path up to the village on our night adventure
iso 3200= phone backlights usable to light stuff
the path is really just cut through the cliffs
the village
Day 3:
i got really early to watch the sunrise out at the point
there are more photos but they will be a composited panorama.....coming soon
Day 4:
-got up early to hike to the summit with Da Boss (dunno if thats how you spell it but its what it sounds like) but it started to rain
-got back and sketched in the rain
-got invited to lunch with local dignitaries
-got to drink with said dignitaries
-wai wai drank too much and threw up
-police came to check my passport
-watched the cooks skin a goat for dinner
-this was by far the most eventful day of the trip

view from the summit
me and Da Boss
probably one of my favorite photos from the trip
apparently i look really angry when i sketch
fail
Day 5:
-still raining so no hiking today
-sketched under and overhang with Li Ping until my hands and feet pretty much froze
-finished season 4 of friends

the clouds were really amazing

Day 6:
-went into the valley to paint landscapes finally
-walked along a really muddy trail for a few hours

the valley!
more amazing clouds
my class
my teacher
my other teacher and his amazing painting
Chung Hi

friendly motorcycle riders


Day 7:
-tried to get up early too hike but i was too tired
-left class to paint a more interesting tree
-spent the afternoon exploring all over the village
-my legs still hurt from climbing with Da Boss
the sign says "become the civilization tourist, travel the civilization scenic area"


the way cooler tree



Day 8:
-the sun finally came out
-still freezing cause of wind
-getting over this place
-tired of peopl always saying hello to me and then giggling
-its so ignorant
-lots of drinking with the teacher and his friends

other students chilling on the roof



the power went out....rave party!

Day 9:

-got up at 4:30 to hike to summit for sunrise
-saw a sunrise/moonset which was really amazing
-climbed all the way up in about 30 minutes which kind of destroyed me
-my hangover kicked in the while hiking back down
-gave up on painting trees and went with my friends to paint landscapes
-got some amazing friend chicken on stick

moonset at the summit 5 am
sunrise on the other side
mountains before the sun came out again.
moon still out
hassy looking good

not a pet

my station

Day 10:
-got up for sunrise in the canyon
-cramed a bunch of people into a van to leave
-got stopped by the cops cause apparently the registration on the van was up

the kitchen of the hostel
yes this is some car pulling a cop car down the mountain...oh china



hanging out waiting for the cops to deal with us
i dont really know what was going on here

apparently your car isnt allowed to catch on fire on this road


so this was a really amazing experience. sorry for the low quality pics if you wanna see any more hi-res let me know.

ill my composites a little while when i have the time to ...composite them