Drawing In China

When I travel, I try to draw the cities I visit. Recently I was invited to travel to Beijing by the China Women’s Film Festival to speak about political cartoons and women’s rights. I wrote about it here. In this, the second part of writing about my journey, I share my drawings of the places I visited.

I arrived at night and was was scheduled to speak in the afternoon, so felt I really should make use of my time and go see something nearby.

After looking at a YouTube video of how to use the subway in Beijing, I walked a few blocks to the station closest to my hotel. On my walk, I saw what was to be omnipresent in Beijing: little vehicles and motorbikes.

I had decided to go see Tiananmen Square, which was a few stops from my hotel. The square is very big, and appeared to be blocked off to visitors, but I could see it from a distance.

There were a lot of tourists (which I did not draw), most of whom appeared to be from Asian countries.

The next day, I got up before sunrise to go to the Great Wall with a busfull of people. It’s always been my dream to walk on the Great Wall, and it was as amazing as I had imagined. I could not stop taking photos, it was incredibly beautiful.

But I finally put down my camera to draw. I was hesitant at first to even attempt it, because it seemed as if it would be impossible to capture — and it sort of is. But I tried. For me, it’s about the process of drawing. I love drawing something and being engrossed in the thing, almost like I try to feel what I am seeing. I focus on the act of drawing and listen to the movement around me. In this case, people were walking the stairs, chatting about the Wall, about their lives, their family. It’s almost meditative for me.

As I was finishing, I happened to see this person on the wall, sweeping. Hi job seemed to be a monumental task and I wondered if this was his section, that perhaps there were many sweepers on the wall that I just didn’t see.

A day later, I took a few hours to visit the Forbidden Palace — clearly not enough time. The buildings are so huge, it was also beautifully daunting like the Great Wall. The details on the buildings were exquisite, I could not do them justice (by any stretch), so I only suggested the colors in my rough drawing below.

My favorite things to draw are the daily things, the little things, such as these as I walked in the Hutongs:

I met a woman from the US Embassy at a talk I gave, and she invited me to visit. While waiting to get admittance to the US Consulate, I drew these two on my phone. A man directing traffic, and a guard on a podium. As everyone, I was feeling under surveilance, there are police and cameras everywhere. I was careful as to when and where I took out my phone to snap a photo or draw, or when I took out my ipad to sketch.

After a few days in Beijing, I traveled to Xi’an, a somewhat smaller city, but huge nonetheless. On the high speed train, I was fascinated by the women attendants, dress and serving customers much like on an airplane: