Bamboo and silk

A swallow is about forty grams of bamboo, glue and painted silk. Getting it to fly straight takes Wang Jianguo two days.

A man sitting outdoors in the shade working a length of bamboo
Yellow, green and blue paper kites with tassels hanging on a workshop wall

How a swallow gets its bones

Spine first, then the upper wing spar bent over a candle, then the shoulders and the tail fork. Every joint is tied with silk thread and touched with fish glue.

Bundles of split bamboo poles stacked upright for sale
Moso bamboo, three winters old, split into strips two millimetres thick
Bamboo poles lashed into a criss-cross lattice
Strips lashed and checked against the pattern until both wings weigh the same
A hand pressing a brush into black ink strokes on a large white sheet
Outlines practised in ink on rice paper before the brush touches silk
A row of bamboo-handled brushes with soft hair tips
Wolf-hair brushes for lines, goat hair for the wide washes of colour

Ink, glue, alum

Cinnabar

The swallow's breast and the dragon's mouth. Ground on a stone every Monday.

Gamboge

Yellow for the eagle's beak and the discs of the centipede.

Indigo

Mixed thin for sky-coloured wings so a kite almost vanishes up high.

Malachite

Tail feathers and the carp's back. It needs three coats.

Pine-soot ink

Every outline and every eye. Painted last.

An older man in a pink checked shirt looking straight at the camera

“Bamboo cut in winter is dry by spring. Cut it in summer and the swallow flies crooked for a year, and you'll never know why.”

Wang Jianguo, frames every kite we sell

A hand holding a fine brush, laying colour onto a painted panel

For the wall, and for the sky

The painted swallow in a frame for the wall, and the cinnabar swallow for the sky. Same bamboo, same hands.

All the kites