福 禄 寿 禧
Prosperity, Wealth,
Longevity and Happiness

Chinese characters usually have one or more meanings and some of them are particularly loved by Chinese people. Fu, Lu and Shou are on the top ten list of the lucky ones.

福, 'Fu' (Good Fortune) is the Star God of Fortune and Wealth. He sometimes stands one head taller than the other two Star Gods. He is always placed in the centre of them. The Star God of Happiness and Wealth holds a symbol of gold signifying wealth. Fu is one of the most popular Chinese characters used in Chinese New Year.

禄, 'Lu' - Prosperity. It used to mean official's salary in feudal China. Lu is also the God of high rank and affluence. He sometimes holds a small child symbolising wishes of healthy offspring, good fortune and hope of the future and the present. He is also seen at times holding a sceptre of power and affluence. Lu symbolises the opportunity to better ones self and receive high rewards.

The Star God of Health and Longevity is called 'Shou', 寿. He is recognised by his large head and he carries a peach in one hand which only blossoms once every three thousand years symbolising immortality. It is considered lucky to wed in the month that the Peach tree blossoms, signifying a long marriage. Shou also means life, age or birthday.

The combination of these Three Star Gods are considered auspicious by Chinese people from around the world. The three Gods should be placed in an area which is higher than a table as a mark of their honour. They are said to symbolise certain constellations in the heavens and are acknowledged at certain months of the year.

禧 - 'Happiness', is an addition to the above three. The Star God of Happiness will springle and shower blessings to ensure people will be happy always.

"Fortune", "wealth", "longevity" and "happiness" are the 4 most used words for blessings in ancient China.

There are many statues, figures, posters and ornaments made of these four stars and characters and they are extremely popular.

This carving, which I did on four separate pieces of wood, were joined together in a diamond shape. It is now hanging on the wall in my mom's house with red tassels attached to its bottom. May the Star Gods of Fortune, Prosperity, Longevity and Happiness always be close to her and give her plenty of blessings.

年年有'余'
There's Always Leftovers

This is a popular idiom used during the chinese lunar new year. It means one would have 'leftovers' (which implies more than enough) every year.

I bought this piece of pre-cut wood from the $2 store. Right away I knew what I was going to carve on it. I had just been waiting to find a piece of wood that in some way reminded me of fish.

There are only three characters on the plaque: 年年有(nian-nian-you). The first two are of the same chinese character and I have them laid out as if they are the skeleton of the fish. Both characters mean year. The 3rd character, 有(has), is made up of two strokes and a crescent moon, which ressembles the gill of the fish, so there is where I carved it. I didn't carve the 4th character of the idiom, 余(the leftovers) because I thought the shape of the fish already suggested it. I believed that most who read chinese would understand what I meant.

Actually, the chinese character for 'leftovers' is not the same as the character for fish. The reason why 'fish' is in the picture is because both the characters, for 余(surplus) and 鱼(fish), are pronounced in the same way! This also explains why we often see fish on ang-pow packets, greeting cards and as new year ornaments.

I believe this piece of wood was meant to be a small cutting board for fruits. I placed a pearl in the hole for hanging to be the fish's eye. All it then needed was a round loop in the fish's mouth and the rope so it looked like the fish was hooked. It sure looks cute, I love it! :)
Lastly, I chose orange for the fish simply because it is a chinese new year colour. Chinese often use red, yellow and orange to decorate for chinese new year. It is believed that these strong bright colours will scare away the evil monster called 年(year), and bring luck to the people.

好彩头

Good Luck!

好(hao) = good; 菜头(cai-tou) = carrot/raddish.

彩头(also cai-tou) means luck.

Thus, good carrot, or good luck!

This piece of wood was actually a plaque that had a poem written in japanese on it. I sanded the print and had it cut into the shape of a carrot. I wanted to make a 'good lucky carrot' :)

I like the purple raddish more because it is unique, therefore I went for the purple colour.

The carving job on this piece of work was quite a 'unpleasant' one. I almost gave up a few times on it. The wood was soft and 'crispy', it chipped very easily. I could not keep a raise part in the strokes of the character, I had to empty the stroke. Even so, it was almost ruined while I was working extremely careful with it. As the layout of the characters on the carrot body(or the root) was nicely spread out, I did not want to add my logo there. I camouflaged my seal in the middle of the leaves.

My good luck carrot, may you always bring luck to me!

希望的烛光
Candle of Hope
This is 希望, pronounced as 'xi-wang', which means hope. When I first saw this piece of wood, about 5" by 5", I was attracted to its grain, the part that resembles a lit candle. It looks very interesting to me.

When I see the flame on a lit candle, it always reminds me of the hope of life or in life.
So naturally the word 'hope' came
straight to my mind.

I decided to paint the characters golden and copper just to show some metallic or glowing effect which looked as if it was due to the light that shone on them.

I have to say this. The candle, looks almost perfect, with the 'dot' (an eye on the wood) in the flame and the melted wax at its bottom.... oooooh I love it really! :)

I asked some friends to guess what it looked like and they gave me different answers: a pair of scissors, a man standing straight with both arms stretched out upwards, and even ... a genital! God! That was the reason I decided to colour the candle to 'enhance' its look. I also added the luminous part around the flame. Thus, the candle of hope.

About a year later, somehow, I felt that the candle part was too obvious, or too highlighted that people who looked at it no longer could appreciate the beauty of the natural grain of the wood as before. I knew I had to make some changes.

Then I sanded it. I wanted to keep the grain visible so I stained it. And I re-painted the second character, 望, with the colour as the first. Now it doesn't look that artificial anymore.

I did this piece of wood when I was at the downside of my life and during then, I was really hoping for myself that everything would turn out to be okay. I needed encouragement and support from any source I could get. Therefore, when I found this little plaque and saw its grain, I was determined to get it and to carve the word 'Hope' on it. I was pleased when I completed the work. It has special meaning to me.

家和万事兴
HOME Sweeeeeet HOME

This is a traditional saying which means 'There is millions of blessing when a family lives in harmony.'

The old chinese folks love this, alot.

As most of my carvings, the characters on this plaque were written in the ancient oracle font. This is how you pronounce the phrase: jia-he-wan-shi-xing (in chinese phonetic). 'jia' means home or family.

The wood used in this plaque was part of a bookshelf which I found by the lift of my block. This is so far, the biggest piece of carving I have ever done. It is 8" by 27.5".

I think it took me about 2 weeks to carve the characters. I was considering navy blue as the colour but thought I wanted a warmer colour. I finally decided to go with purple. Having painted it, I felt like it was still missing something... a feel of a sweet lovely atmosphere. Perhaps a garden would add beauty to a home and so I painted little flowers on the plaque, and then the vines. I love the final touch being added on the plaque.

Well, everyone has a home. No matter what one does or where one goes, ultimately will return to home. Home is very very important in our life. Keeping harmony in home and maintainting it is really an art which requires alot of, not just knowledge, understanding and consideration.

忍 TOLERANCE
(Place cursor over picture for explanation.)
Chinese people have a saying, 百忍成金 - "Hundreds of TOLERANCES turn everything into Gold".

The character on this plaque is 忍, pronounced as 'ren', which means to tolerate, to resist or to endure. It is made up of two components - 刃('ren', edge of blade) and 心('xin', heart).

It is commonly used to encourage and 'remind' one that it is worth enduring a long, painful and miserable hardship. In return for doing that, there will be more peace (on earth) or great rewards.

This is the first and only carving which is of a 'pop-up' character. For all the other carvings, the characters were carved into the wood but in this one, the background was carved into the wood, leaving the character elevated!

It sure takes alot more effort to do the 'inverted' version. I had to be very careful to make sure that the area I carved on the background was even and uniform and the border of the sunk area was smoothly edged.

This piece of wood was actually the remainder of my artwork - Sharing the Moon..., in my previous post! Brian cut it into the shape I drafted on the 'left over' wood and since the size of this plaque is only about 10" x 6", I decided to carve just one character on it. I had also been wanting to tryout a somewhat different kind of carving : the pop-up character type, so I did.

I painted the frame of this plaque to resemble stone or granite. I was taught how to do this during one of my primary school art lessons. It was fun, really. First, I had to prepare different shades of grey paint. Then I simply dipped a toothbrush on the paint and brushed it onto a comb! Repeating the procedure with the different shades of paint results in the stone effect.

It is not easy to tolerate. However, it is the Chinese traditional culture that it is very important to be tolerant. If one can do that, many unpleasant happenings can be avoided. In fact, it is one of the beautiful parts of character-building in our social education.

In our life, we tolerate. Sometimes we even tolerate the intolerable.
At home, although we love our family, there are times when we must tolerate each other's behaviour.

At work, we have to deal with our duties, bosses, colleagues, clients, etc. We must extend our tolerance beyond the home and into the workplace. We have to control and adjust our temper, anger and dissatisfaction sometimes to avoid unneccessary quarrels, unhealthy arguements or ruined relationships.

In other situations, we have to tolerate or 'resist' temptations. We must resist unhealthy habbits, criminal acts and even the temptation of delicious desserts if we are dieting.

Happy Tolerating!

但愿人长久,千里共婵娟
Sharing the Moon...

'Even though we are thousands of miles apart, we will always cherish each other in our thoughts by appreciating the beauty of the moon together.'

This is one of my all-time favourite phrases. It is made up of two verses from the poem, 水调歌头(shui tiao ge tou), by a famous China poet, 苏轼(苏东坡) - Soo Tung Po.

This sentimental poem was written when the poet, Soo, was trapped at a place far away from his home during war time. He wrote this poem in the mid autumn(when the moon was the fullest) to express he thoughts for his brother. These two verses became a popular phrase used to describe the thoughts between separated parties or couples.

In the phrase, the word 'together', actually implies 'at the same time'. So knowing that both party are looking at the moon at the same time brings the two(hearts) closer. The poet wrote this poem to comfort his brother and to encourage him to keep an open mind and be positive about life. How sweet was that!

The 'ingredients' for this piece of artwork were quite interesting. It was made by joining two chopping boards I bought from the Value$1 store. These two chopping boards resemble the upper bodies of two people. I had my friend, Brian, cut a part out of one of the pieces and then joined them back but having one raised a little bit. So it looks like one is leaning on the chest of the other.

The wood actually has some unusual dark grain. I wanted to keep the grain visible but also didn't want the bodies to look 'bare', so I finally decided to stain the wood. I chose dark blue because the verses were about night time. Initially, I made a pop-up moon, with paperclay. After baking it, it became like inflated, the surface also crumbled and I had to remove it. Then Brian cut me a wooden circle. There it was, my moon(looks like an egg yolk!)

As the meaning of this phrase is so dear, I went with golden characters on the dark blue sky.

An ancient chinese poet bowing to the moon, inviting her to drink with him.

此物最相思
The Love Seeds


The verse is part of a poem written by a famous China poet, 王维(Wang Wei) - Red Seeds. The poem was about the seeds of a kind of tree which grown in the southern part of China.



The seeds are bright red and small that look like little hearts. Thus its nickname, love seeds. In the poem, it tells us to pick and keep the seeds for they represent the thoughts and love that someone has for us.

I am glad that I live in Singapore, a country that can be considered as located in the south . The good news is we have the 'love trees' on this tropical island. Hooray!

This piece of artwork is my boyfriend's favourite. The idea of having the carving framed up with the depth allowing some love seeds to be displayed makes it so special. There used to be a big old 'love tree' near the main entrance of the my school when I was young. Some of the love seeds I picked during then are still with me! However, many of those have turned into dark red due to age, almost like burnt seeds. The ones in this frame were from Botanic Garden when I visited there two years ago. I put nine of them because 'nine'(九) to chinese, sounds the same as 久, which means for a l - - o - - n - - g time!

The wood came from a piece of discarded junk wood. Boy, it really took me a while to study its grain to decide which part of it I wanted to use. Watch the photo closely and you will find that the first two characters, which means 'these thing', are on the grain that is pointing to the seeds! Cool huh.
Hmm...I have to say carving this one was a challenge as the characters were small and the having some of the strokes that fine - especially that third character, I had to be very very careful not to cause any 'diaster'. Whew!