Grottos get creative with their spaces
New venues offer visitors to the famed home of the artworks more attractions to experience, Cheng Yuezhu and Ma Jingna report in Dunhuang, Gansu.
Collaborating with art education companies, the space hosts workshops teaching crafts, including copying murals, book binding, and making clay sculptures.
The mural copying workshops are available daily. Visitors can sit for an hour or two, and paint using natural mineral pigments on specially made boards that mimic the surface beneath the murals.
According to Liu Fang, a workshop instructor, the boards replicate the layering of the Mogao Caves walls, with each consisting of five layers. They are made by the instructors.
"We also have workshops to teach students to make them. We have sessions available for every step of mural art, from making boards and extracting pigments from minerals, to copying murals."
Ouyang Xuezi and her 7-year-old son experienced the workshop for the first time last month. Living in Guazhou county in Jiuquan, a two-hour drive away, they often come to Dunhuang for the weekend.
