In the Suzhou foreign teacher class project---campus art club class, we invited Yuliia Tveritina (a doctor from Ukrainian National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture), a young painter from Ukraine, to be our tutor. In this class, we explored the art of oil painting with students from Suzhou No.1 High School. Students painted the beautiful spring with colors and brushes.

In the beautiful spring afternoon

The azalea is red while its leaves are tender

In the first Art Club Class, students had an encounter with the colors with Yuliia in the school's century-old "Wu Culture Base"

“Dear all, spring is the most colorful season in the whole year. Please use your brushes to paint the colors in your eyes. This experience is totally different from photographing. Combing with what you see and what you imagine, you can create beautiful pictures use the colors you have.”

"The spring scenery is generally warm and bright, so we can use a slightly warmer tone for close shots. But the shadow changes, the difference in the distance needs to be reflected by the cool tone, so we can add cold color, such as blue,to blend."

u   Yuliia explained the techniques of oil painting and the uses of light and color in details to students.

u  "Miss Yuliia, I have learned sketch. Can I compose like a sketch?"

"You can certainly create a very beautiful piece of art today if you have the basis of sketching. What needs to be noticed is that oil painting pays more attention to the relationship between shape and color than sketching. We use color blocks as a set of lines for sketching, to shape the volume of objects, realistic light, shadow, light and shade, and then add our own subjective color tendencies. And this will basically be the most ideal picture effect.”

Dear all, feel free to use your colors and brushes to create. Squeeze out the colors you want and pick a brush. Try to look for the angle you want under the light and shadow to create your own piece of art on a white canvas.

The garden became quiet when students started to paint. Students all focused on their creating and tried to paint a beautiful scene.

Yuliia walked by each student and gave detailed targeted guidance. The picture that might have been of a single color suddenly had a texture, and the composition of the picture that might have been thin was magically layered.

“Yuliia, I haven’t finished yet.” Time flies so quickly when you are concentrated. "You see, Miss Yuliia just simply helped me to add a few strokes, the group of powder i just painted suddenly change into a flower. Awesome!"

The art club oil painting class ended, the encounter with color is short but wonderful. Extended courses, such as oil painting, drama, Model United Nations and animation, are rich and colorful. This courses enriches students' spare time and helps them discover more possibilities and shining points of them. Let's look forward to meeting Miss Yuliia again in the next class to complete the unfinished works and have more colorful achievement.

About Dr. Yuliia:

This is her 7^th year for in Suzhou. In this special winter vacation, she stayed in Suzhou with her family and shared this epidemic fighting memory with us. She recorded online lessons for students and use her paintbrushes to record this special memory. Click the link to see Dr. Yuliia's anti-epidemic diary:

Fight against the epidemic "cartoon"---foreign teacher Yuliia’s anti-epidemic diary