Beautiful Snow Plum Blossom Scroll

The plum blossom is one of the few flowers that will bloom in the winter. Here it is shown blooming even in a harsh snow storm.

The Chinese characters to the right of the signature and artist's red stamp are actually an old Chinese poem. Part of it roughly translates into, "Though the branch is old and hard like iron, still the plum blossoms bloom each winter".

A woman's strength and beauty is sometimes compared to the plum blossom. Therefore, some people would take the deeper meaning of this scroll to be: "Even when a woman is old and tough, they can still bring beauty to the world".

This is a freehand style painting by (Qing Yu-Dian) of Beijing, China.

This type of painting must be done quickly as the xuan paper (rice paper) absorbs the ink very fast.

One wrong move by the artist, and all is lost.

Artists who practice this type of work in China must have many years of experience.

Materials used in this work are watercolor and special black Chinese ink on xuan paper (rice paper). Later I had the painting mounted to a silk brocade wall scroll.