乐 JOY

This is the my very first carving artwork. I did this in 2001 when I started learning calligraphy carving in a community centre. During the first lesson, my teacher gave me a few chinese characters to pick for my first artwork. Among the choices were 乐(Joy, Happy),真(Genuine) and 福(Prosperity). I chose 乐 because of my cheerful and jolly nature.

This character 乐, pronounced as 'le', in the traditional font type I wrote in, symbolizes a man holding up two handful of food and is smiling. This piece of wood was a cutout from a wooden carton.

Well, almost two years later, I moved to my current home. I had all my carvings hung up on the wall and somehow I felt that the shape of this plaque was quite 'boring' and its colour didn't really look good... so had it reshaped and then repainted it!

See that transformation? I am sure I like its new look better :)