Book by Sylvia Chen

the

by Sylvia Chen

BL oo M UNDER BRUSHES

Student’s work

“Art should be said to be an expression of the soul.

-- Yun Hua Fang

Dedication

For my teacher Yunhua Fang. For Freestyle Academy.

For all my family and friends.

For all art scholars and educators.

by Sylvia Chen

Yun Hua Fang Art Studio

Acknowledgements

For my art teacher Yun Hua Fang Laoshi, who became the turning point of my art path and my mentor. For Freestyle Academy, which offers this opportunity to express my ideas and curiosity through this project. For Ms. Parkinson, my Design teacher, who helped and encouraged me so much in the process of making this book. And Mr. Greco, my English teacher, spent so much time supporting me to reach the next level in my writing. Finally, for my family and friends, whose ongoing support helped during the making of this book possible.

Creativity is today and in the past, and will be something that is more important and needed in the future.

-- Yun Hua Fang

Yun Hua Fang in his class

Preface

A friend of my parents introduced me to Yun Hua Fang Studio at the end of 2022, at which time I was suffering from a long plateau in my art. They warned me a few times that Fang Laoshi was a very strict teacher before my first visit. Even in our initial conversation, he told me my works seemed too decorated as he lectured about the difference between fine and commercial art. When I attended the creative class at night, I was not used to seeing other students’ works that were better than mine, and it made the experience even more difficult. As a kid, I had grown up hearing that I was a genius in art with talents and good works, but this class awakened me from my daydream.

Fang Laoshi’s classes are usually three hours long without a break. He critiques students’ work at the beginning and the end of the class. Delays in the classes are common, and class doesn’t end until every student’s work has been viewed. I first did not understand the action, but later I knew it was his way of showing responsibility.

The studio’s summer camp in 2023 is the other biggest turning point for me. I used to think art was just to draw as realistically as possible. I had confidence in myself but was blind. I have ambition and a really big dream that I don’t know how to achieve. Eight weeks of intense art camp, creative, printmaking, drawing, and construction drawing. They didn’t just improve my drawing skills but trained my perseverance.

As I reflect on my experience, I am grateful for the pressure Fang Laoshi applied to my growth as an artist;— it helped me reach my dream. For me, the studio is not just a place to learn art, it is a place that trains the heart and mind. It helped me to see the world and develop my attitude towards creativity. Fang Laoshi’s way of teaching can be very hard to understand in the first place; I felt disappointed in myself many times. But the disappointment opened and broadened my perspective, seeing my potential to grow and to reach my dream that seems unreachable. I want to use this book as a chance to show my gratitude towards the studio and to Fang Laoshi. The spirit of art that I learned from him will accompany me for my whole life.

This book was originally a profile project but through the process of writing, I found my passion for the connection of art education and creativity, which have always been mentioned by Fang Laoshi. Therefore, I used this opportunity to express my perspective through this book and also to sort out my questions. English is not my first language but the language improvement brought by this project is significant. Even though this documentary project has been very intense, I enjoyed the process. I hope you can also feel my passion while reading this book. Thank you very much!

In Yun Hua Fang Art Studio

In Yun Hua Fang Art Studio

Introduction

“Art should be said to be an expression of the soul.”

--Yun Hua Fang

In Yun Hua Fang Art Studio

At around 8 am, students carrying bags with art supplies entered YunHua Fang Art Studio located in Saratoga, California, walking past sculptures and drawing props covered in dust, and sat down with their sketchbooks on tables covered in black plastic sheets. Against a backdrop of newspaper articles and winning records on the classroom” walls, Teacher Yunhua Fang started the class by critiquing his students’ work. “Your tone of the work is too gray, I can’t see the contrast. Focusing on the details but drawing as a whole.” Fang Laoshi said, looking at the student’s work projecting on the TV, marking the work digitally through his mouse and starting today’s course from there. From day to night, the whole studio is filled with the sound of pens brushing through papers. Fang never tells students how exactly they should do, but gives them a guideline and discovers the path of the solution by themselves.

Yun Hua Fang Art Studio is located in Saratoga, a part of Silicon Valley next to Cupertino. Running by Yunhua Fang and his wife Ms. Zhou, the studio has been educating generations of students for over a decade. Because of Fang’s language barrier in English most of his students came from Chinese families. Holding a significant record of top College acceptance rate, parents who hold high expectations of their children and those students who have a goal to pursue came to the studio. The studio offers various types of classes for different age groups and art methods. Six drawing

classes including basic skills and human anatomy courses; Western and Chinese painting classes; five creative classes for different levels, and a Charcoal drawing class. The intense teaching job requires him to have two classes operating at the same time. Fang is relatively strict with his students, especially with those who have high goals. He always pushes students to the next level by pointing out the insufficient in their work directly, helping them to reach “perfection” in techniques and the ideas behind the works.

Under Fang’s guidance, he created an unbelievable record with a hundred percent acceptance rate of his students being accepted into top colleges by their portfolios came from his educational beliefs. As an immigrant from China who was educated at the China Academy of Art, Fang combines Western education beliefs of unlimited self-expression and arousing one’s self-consciousness in art with Eastern practices of studying diligently and training assiduously, originating from ancient Chinese philosophy. He helps students craft portfolios to showcase their uniqueness and creativity, the encouragement of one’s free mind to express and harsh training gave them the condition to compete for seats at top colleges and universities. Fang emphasizes that one’s creativity is the key and crucial skill to this fast-developing world, and it should also be the essence of educating students to uncover the underlying principles within knowledge.

Ouside Yun Hua Fang Art Studio

chapter One The world desires more creativity than ever before

Student An Jie Xu doing digital art

Living in a highly technology-based and competitive environment like Silicon Valley, Yunhua Fang realized that developing one’s creativity is the only way to bloom in a world of information and fast evolving like today. There are many studies done on how art develops one’s creativity skills. According to “The Importance of Art Education in the Classroom,” the value of embedding art education includes imaginative skills building, social interactions, and emotional regulation (Heal). It also gives students a bigger possibility to be interested in creative expression and to communicate their ideas visually.

With the advancement of technology and new inventions in tools, the methods of making art have significantly changed, and the development and popularity of digital art bring more possibilities to creative industries, not only design and illustration but also fine art. The tools of artistic expression have expanded. From 2D to 3D, digital tools became the other biggest art tool besides traditional drawing. Yun Hua Fang Art Studio offers creative classes to students with the opportunity to express their ideas in the form of art regardless of materials and dimensions.

But why is creativity important today? From Fang’s perspective, “With current AI technology, many people’s jobs have actually been replaced. In other words, what is

needed more in the future is brain power rather than simple labor”. Both the San Francisco startup OpenAI and Emma Goldberg voiced concern about AI’s potential to negatively impact jobs. They noted that AI has the capacity to automate the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs worldwide (A.I.’s Threat to Jobs Prompts Question of Who Protects Workers.). From the perspective of agricultural society, creativity is only required in daily problem-solving situations. However, the advancement of technology and industrialization has made our world today more information-based than ever before. From basic electricity to artificial intelligence, and the broad accessibility of diverse information, creativity is the root of innovation. Fang’s perspective on the issue draws him to educate his students to pursue a way of issue thinking and creativity on a different level. He encourages his students to create the “one and only” idea without the limitation of habitual thinking. And demonstrate the idea visually through their skilled art techniques. He claims that it is very challenging to create things that are brand new because what we see every day has been created by others. Countless people are doing repetitive jobs that can possibly be replaced by technology in the future, but what cannot be replaced is creativity.

Previous Page: Inside Yunhua Fang Art Studio

In Yun Hua Fang Art Studio

“With current AI technology, many people’s jobs have actually been replaced. In other words, what is needed more in the future is brain power rather than simple labor”.

-- YunHua Fang

In Yun Hua Fang Art Studio

chapter two Unravel the Secret of College Art Portfolio

Student (Sylvia C)’s work of Yun Hua Fang

Beyond his regular classes, Yun Hua Fang helps students to build art portfolios. In the US college admission system, only art colleges and top universities like Ivys accept portfolios among students’ other admission materials. Colleges desire to see one’s uniqueness through their admission materials, the portfolio is an excellent opportunity to “introduce” yourself to these admission offices. For students with non-academic skills, this option can be even more effective than regulated grades and scores.

According to the official information of portfolio submission requirements from the Rhode Island School of Design website, students should fully reflect a range of ideas, perspectives, curiosity, and experimentation in their portfolio, including finished and 1-2 unfinished planning pieces to show the thinking process. They especially value unique perspectives and problem-solving and the student’s technical skills shown in the works. Another private college Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in NYC, founded by inventor, industrialist, and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, has a slightly different requirement for the

portfolio but the same motivation behind it. They offer students a “Home Test” after completing the Common App. Students are required to submit their works that are created based on specific topics that are often very abstract and interpretative such as “A view from the inside of feedback loop” (The Cooper Union), along with a sketchbook to show their brainstorming process and how they interpret them in visual form. Its purpose is to see students’ creativity and problem-solving skills in a limited time, showing their perspective on these topics provided by the admission office.

Yunhua Fang combined years of art education experience and decided to make portfolio counseling into his class. He emphasizes students should find the different angles of a topic, and express personal interpretations through their unique visual art styles. “Because only in this way can the school’s elite education spark more sparks and create a brand new world,” Fang said.

Fang Laoshi claims that it was not only the grade of those 400 students that made them selected but also their outstanding portfolio that fully showcased their spirits. He thinks academic grades and scores should

“Because only in this way can the school’s elite education spark more sparks and create a brand new world.”

-- YunHua Fang

Yun Hua Fang in his class teaching

not be the only metric for evaluating a student: “A person may be very creative, but his academic performance is poor, and his SAT score may be very low” (Fang).

These top colleges may value a student’s spirit that is shown more than their scores. His past student Miss Ma got into Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art with her portfolio and an imperfect SAT score out of 2400. But her spirit of rigorous work attitude and enquiring mind stood out. Another good example is his past student Gong Zhixuan, who graduated from Yunhua Fang Art Studio in 2020 and is now studying at Princeton University. He re-enrolled in the portfolio class and remade a brand-new art portfolio in 2019.

“Later I asked him, do you have any regrets? You are still working hard throughout the summer and making a portfolio. He said no. He said I learned a lot again,” said Fang.

In Yun Hua Fang Art Studio

chapter three Art is the language of the soul.

Yun Hua Fang

Fang Laoshi is the first batch of college students after the Cultural Revolution. He was one of the 43 selected students out of 50,000 candidates in China in the late 20th century who entered the China Academy of Art, the most influential art school in China. He graduated in 1982 with a Ph.D, Yunhua Fang moved to Silicon Valley, with a heart full of hope and excitement teaching students of all ages different types of art in his studio. He now has over 40 years of teaching experience.

The issue of creative class teaching draws his attention, from his experience, most of the so-called creative class is still based on imitation, but truly original created ideas or works are very few. Even in college, there are no teaching materials or a specific teaching system like drawing technique classes, as most full-time professors only talk about their experiences and ideas for making their work. It motivated him to develop an educational syllabus that supports and inspires students’ creative thinking and visual expression skills.

Fang’s teaching style cooperates with what he learned back to his studies in China and the Western education beliefs he experienced after he moved to the US. The uniqueness of his teaching sometimes made his students who grew up in the US very hard to understand, but the familiarness stirred up a resonance among students’ families who immigrated from China.

“FLS reminds me of those teachers in China who teach in traditional ways. He has very high standards for his students. He also focuses on teaching students drawing techniques. But the difference between most of the teachers in China and him is that he puts creativity in a very important position, so he guides them to be creative,” said Fengxiao Chen, father of Yunhua Fang’s student Sylvia Chen.

But it is because of the collision of two different education beliefs that came from two completely different cultures that made numerous of his students bloom.

Outside of Yun Hua Fang Art Studio

Student (Sylvia C)’s work of Yun Hua Fang

China has a very different college admission compared to the one in the US. In mainland China, all schools use the Gaokao (high school exam) as the examination system to determine the student’s future path in college based on their scores. In an environment like this, the score is everything—your reputation and your ticket to the future. Some schools offer students with skills like art and dance the opportunity to enter as Special students if they get a good score in Yikao (Art Examination) -- the art version of Gaokao (Hong). However, the negative stereotype of people who enter as Special students also affects people’s impression of art education, they often think that it is a shortcut to entering college for those who are poor at academics.

The purpose of Yikao is not to see students’ creativity or personality but to create a “standard” way to evaluate them based on a number. The challenge is to draw and sketch in person with millions of others in a limited time. The solution to get a good score is practicing, because only a specific type of art style that depict the object as realistic as possible will be accepted as getting a high score.

In FLS’s opinion, Chinese art education is too standardized, and restricted by different kinds of rules. It has been taught in a way that is almost the same as STEM subjects. He claims that the essence of education should let the students digest it themselves, and own the knowledge. It is not enough to just accept whatever the teacher taught. The purpose of learning and doing art is not just having good drawing or painting skills, but developing the ability and ideology to create. Fang thinks that art should be the language of one’s soul, a language that tells one’s true heart: “...to a large extent, it expresses one’s own spiritual level, which belongs to the soul. In other words, there are some things in his heart that he wants to express and speak out about and some things that he wants to tell others. This may be real art”. He addressed this issue by combining Western beliefs of art education into his teaching, allowing and encouraging the development of individuals’ creativity and personal characteristics. Fang mentioned that achievements will come along with the formation of students’ creativity.

Student’s art porfolio of Yun Hua Fang

“As for cultivating children’s potential, this is what will happen in the end. What comes after having creativity will take shape naturally…Students must digest it themselves, make the knowledge their own, and discover the laws and reasons inside it”

-- YunHua Fang

Sylvia C’s painting done in Fang’s painting class

chapter four From History to Classroom

“Write the temperament in your heart.”

--

YunHua Fang

Chinese painting Class and Caligraphy

The motivation that drives Fang to incorporate Eastern and Western educational philosophies together into his classroom, came from seeing the interesting difference between their art form, and the sparks that might be created by their combination. The origin of Western art can be traced back to ancient Greece and Rome, inspired by Ancient Egyptian art, artists back then discovered the concept of style. During the Renaissance when humanism expanded, artists like Michelangelo focused on how to depict the object as realistically as possible, which had a significant contribution to the discovery of perspective. Later, during Impressionism, artists who painted outdoors saw the beauty of the variety of light, such as Van Gogh; the collision of colors brought a new visual impact to the generation. These inspired him to open the Traditional Oil Painting Class, letting the students explore and study the beauty of art that came from different periods along with history.

Nevertheless, the development of Chinese art is quite different from this, starting with hieroglyphs, which further developed into calligraphy and became the essence of Chinese art. For thousands of years, traditional painting has been flawlessly kept by the people while having a history of crossing different dynasties and being studied by surrounding countries. Using MaoBi (writing brushes, which are usually made from animal furs and bamboo sticks) to paint and write on rice paper and silk became part of the culture. Fang pointed out that Chinese painting and calligraphy came from the same origin. Learning to control the lines and feel their spirit can inspire the artist to feel more, and see unique forms of creativity. Those Chinese painters from ancient times expressed what they felt rather than what they actually saw on paper. One famous example is the “Thousand Miles of Mountains and Rivers” painted by Wang Ximeng in 1113 the Song Dynasty. Painted on silk, the art has a full length of 1191.5

“The same is true for Western art. In fact, to a large extent, it expresses one’s own spiritual level, which belongs to the soul... This may be real art”.

-- YunHua Fang

Students in Fang’s painting class

cm and a height of 51.5 cm. The artist detailed a landscape of Jiangnan by using exquisite brushwork techniques and brilliant blue and turquoise. Large to the mountains, and small to the houses. Fang Laoshi said, “Calligraphy seems to the Chinese to be the highest spiritual realm”. Thus he established the Chinese Painting class in the art studio along with Traditional Oil painting, providing opportunities for students of different ages, to experience the spirit of traditional Chinese art.

In conclusion, Fang’s combination of diverse art forms significantly benefited his students, allowing them to study the realm of different cultures while improving their own horizons and technical skills.

Students in Chinese Painting Class.

Outside Yun Hua Fang Art Studio

Conclusion

The fast-developing technology and informational society are putting large amounts of pressure on some industries. Yunhua Fang believes that creativity is the key to success in this environment. He thinks that the essence of education should be letting the students understand the skill to discover the reasons and laws inside of knowledge. Furthermore, with a significant track record of his students’ acceptance rates, he found that the key to success in art portfolios lies in encouraging students to showcase their unique interpretations and personal styles on the given topics. Having attended The China Academy of Art and learning the different educational philosophies in China and the US inspired him to establish a new system of teaching creativity

to his students. His passion for the beauty of Western and Eastern art motivated him to open the Traditional Oil Painting class and the Chinese Painting class in his art studio.

While practicing his beliefs in education in the multicultural society of Silicon Valley, Fang discovered that there are too many distractions and temptations from technology among students. But the intention matters in a high-pressure environment like this, and students are told to learn and know everything regardless of their interests. Ultimately, Fang recommends students should focus on one or two subjects and delve into them, trusting that their passion, time, and painstaking effort will eventually bloom.

In Yun Hua Fang Art Studio.

Works’ Cited

Yun Hua Fang. Personal Interview with YunHua Fang. February 2, 2024.

Goldberg, Emma. “A.I.’S Threat to Jobs Prompts Question of Who Protects Workers.” The New York Times, 23 May 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/business/jobs-protections-artificial-intelligence.html.

Feng Xiao Chen. Personal Interview with Fengxiao Chen. March 2, 2024.

Heal, Stephen. “The Importance of Art Education in the Classroom - UF Online.” Online Master’s in Art Education Program at UF, 28 Feb. 2024.

“Application Process for First-Year Admissions | RISD.” Www.risd.edu, www.risd.edu/ admissions/first-year/apply-risd. Accessed 23 Apr. 2024.

“School of Art.” The Cooper Union, cooper.edu/admissions/applying-to-cu/art. Accessed 23 Apr. 2024.

Hong, Lydia. “Yi Kao, Standardizing Art.” Medium, 26 July 2020, medium.com/@muyangho/yi-kao-standardizing-art-de3d7fe0bfe1.

Wang, Ximeng. Thousand Miles of Mountains and Rivers, 1113. Accessed 22 Apr. 2024.

Sylvia C’s painting done in Fang’s painting class

About Author

Sylvia Chen

Sylvia (Shuhan) Chen, is a Mountain View High School student who joined Freestyle Academy Design in 2023. Chen started her art education at the age of three, driven by a strong interest in art and fashion, she moved with her family to the United States in 2019 after graduating from elementary school in the Chinese mainland. Since art and fashion have always been her primary interests, she is looking forward to majoring in them in college en route to a career as a fashion designer.

“There are so many students and I don’t know anyone who is a natural genius. They are not miracles but students who have persistence and the ability to move forward bravely when encountering problems.”

-- YunHua Fang