—Finding the material—

By Wang Xiaoyi

At the first visit of Mr. Sun, getting closely in contact with the pictures, I was surprised about its beauty and I wanted to try. Back home, I started to prepare. First I should prepare the picture—leaf. With my students, we came to the campus garden, which has many trees.

Arriving at the garden, We picked up the scattered leafs, such as sweet-scented osmanthus, yulan tree, banana tree, even the grass. Looking at the leaf, I felt embarrassed.

Hearing from Mr. Sun, the leaf should be big with density, The banana tree leaf is big but without density, while the osmanthus is with density but not big. We founnd the huangjiao tree after a while. Isn’t it the one in Mr. Sun’s work? Finally, we decided to use the yulan leaf and huangjiao leaf.

By Qin Xuan

We had problems during the picking and soaking, it was not only rotten but also smelly. We suffered from being bookish. It seemed to us that the soaking is hard, we decided to go to Mr. Sun for help.

We were very happy to see him again. We asked him: how do you choose the material? Is there any requirement about the leaf?

Mr. Sun smiled: “the requirement is not that high, as long as the leaf is not that thin and thick. If the size is big enough, we can draw more figures. I find one graft tree, which leaf is big and soft. But it was finished in 1980s. And then I use the huangjiao tree to paint. But I still cannot draw more people. But finally I find the hangdao tree in the street. So I solve the material problems”. And then he asked us to pick up some leaves.

We went downstairs to pick up some leafs. With three leaves we went back to his home. We observed the leaves, one of students stated that it is magic! We could even draw the beautiful pictures in this small leaves.

By Zhou Chuanren

Mr. Sun said: “the leaf is very special for the picture, only the wutong, huangjiao, baila leaf can be used. The selection of the leaf is strict, it should be suitable with perfect face and clear nerve….. after the selection, only several leaves in one branch can be used. The leaf can be used after processing. The processed leaf is very thin, with only one layer connecting leaf and nerve. The process is very special. One normal leaf must be done through the shine, soaked in cold water, peeled and soaked in the medicine water. In this way, the leaf can not get rotten. The processed leaf can be made for the bookmark after dying.