Time flies like a white horse, and in the blink of an eye, my father has been away from us for ten years. Life is short, even if one is healthy and long lived, how many ten years can there be? In my heart, my father's departure is just a long journey. I have been waiting, waiting for his return

My father's departure was sudden and I couldn't face it. In my mind, my father's figure, my father's thick baritone with Shandong accent, and my father's posture of wielding a paintbrush like a storm... are always vivid, just like yesterday.

For ten years, I never thought my father had left this world. When drawing, how to express and blend the withering and moistening of the brush and ink whenever encountering them? What is the best humidity when the rain is about to come from the mountains and the wind fills the building? How to manage the structure of Chinese characters when writing calligraphy, and when is the most appropriate way to use the brush to lift and press? Wait, wait. Wait for your father, wait for him to come back, all problems will be solved easily. Sometimes involuntarily, I pick up the phone to call my father, wanting to ask for more information. But I will never hear his voice again.

My father in my heart is a handsome, free spirited, scholarly, and omnipotent person. In the 1960s, the county town planned to hold a class education exhibition. As the father of a cultural museum art cadre, he was responsible for the overall design of the exhibition. One part of the theme is the scene of a young hero fighting against bad elements, mainly depicting the heroic deeds of the protagonist fighting bravely to protect collective property. At that time, there were no pictures and using oil paintings alone was not vivid enough, so my father decided to use sculptures to depict it, completely using mud to make corn stalks. At that time, it was our summer vacation, and my younger brother and I followed my father and his students to mix mud together. We used wooden blocks as foundations, built scaffolding, and then piled up mud. Firstly, create a large outline and stack it layer by layer; In the middle of the dry season, the father used a homemade sculpting knife to shape it. Summer is very hot, with sweat and mud intertwined. The clay figurine and father are indistinguishable. My father is both depicting the dynamics of the characters and teaching us how to use a sculpting knife. For example, the contours of the face and the expression of the eyes cannot be represented on paper using black, white, or gray to depict the highlights of the eyes and eyeballs. Sculptures are three-dimensional, all made of plaster, and the highlights can only be presented through depressions. After a month of day and night of creation, one is a heroic and angry expression, and the other is a timid and pleading expression, both vividly portrayed through facial and body language, allowing the audience to be educated while also appreciating the infectious power of art.

At that time, my father painted the most promotional murals, and his handwriting could be found everywhere in the farmland, by the community, or in the courtyards of county-level government agencies. We two little ones followed our father, climbing up and down on a shelf over ten meters high, without any fear, helping him carry paint buckets, brushes, and pass oil painting pigments. The scorching sun never retreats, and we deeply feel our father's love for painting. This spirit has always inspired us to live and work as we grow up.

Around 1972, many educated youth art enthusiasts were transferred to the county cultural center to participate in short-term art creation classes, which gave the newly liberated father the opportunity to showcase his professional expertise. The short training class is filled with a strong atmosphere of painting, where everyone learns while creating. In order to master the basic character structure, the students make poses for each other. And his father was always surrounded by people, demonstrating and explaining, and everyone was full of respect and admiration for his father. My younger brother and I often sit around, enjoying the warmth of absorbing knowledge. Since then, my father has been carefully cultivating young art teachers in the county town. Under his influence, the local art creation and education industry flourished, and the small county town was later awarded the title of Children's Painting Hometown by the Ministry of Culture. This is also a great contribution of my father's life.

During this period, my father also began to explore and study Chinese painting, and taught me and my younger brother painting in private. Since then, we have started a more formal college style art education. Under the guidance of their father's words and deeds, both siblings have laid a solid foundation in line drawing, sketching, watercolor painting, still life painting, and characters. At that time, there was a severe shortage of art materials, and all the books and materials related to art that could be purchased by Xinhua Bookstore in Dafan County would be bought by my father (all the books and picture books that my father had studied in university were burned during the Cultural Revolution). I remember in the late 1970s, a bookstore brought in a batch of oil painting albums of 19th century rural folk paintings in France. My father found them a treasure trove and spent everything he had, buying them all. For this reason, the whole family had to tighten their belts. In order to learn, on the basis of painting, it is necessary to read a large number of Chinese and foreign art works, which makes us realize that only by improving our appreciation level can we improve our painting skills.

My father has a straightforward and straightforward personality. He devoted himself to oil painting in his early days, and then turned to printmaking, which was simple, dignified, rich, and childish. His paintings fully displayed his personal temperament and strong personality colors. He often teaches us to be honest, daring to act, daring to love and hate. To set life goals, do big things, and start from small things. In the late period of the Cultural Revolution, my father gradually transitioned from printmaking to Chinese painting. At that time, our family was very small, so we used a dining table as a painting table. On top of it was a gray cotton blanket that was familiar to middle-aged people of that era. Brush, ink, inkstone, and plate were placed on the stool. First, we used charcoal to outline the rough outline, and then we used a large wrist brush to mix ink and water. With a few strokes, we poured out the mountains and rivers in our hearts, creating a majestic waterfall and flowing spring. These paintings are actually the release of his years of accumulation in the depths of his heart. He wants to paint, paint the beautiful mountains and rivers, and paint his inner voice. From then on, it became uncontrollable. In those years, our home was completely transformed into an art studio, with walls and floors covered with finished and semi-finished paintings. My father always finishes his meal hastily in his spare time and starts his creative work day and night. The light always accompanies us to sleep. Until the end of the Cultural Revolution, when the unit gave him an art studio, our home was considered a home.

The 1980s and 1990s were the heyday of my father's painting. Being a child is like a flying pigeon, far away from home. Father can also concentrate and concentrate on drawing. He has traveled through most of China, covering mountains and rivers. The artistic conception of his works has been constantly expanded with the extension of his footprints, and his broad vision has also been constantly displayed in his paintings, allowing me to read about the outside world and also the voice of my father.

My father's painting is collected in his heart, and his broad emotions are also collected in his painting. Every time I read, I can get a different feeling, reading about his life, reading about his hardships, reading about his joy

Father's painting is his lifelong pursuit and imprint.