"The cradle of children's painting" in Jiangsu Province is renowned for its whimsical, exuberant art that takes a kid's perspective on a frog cantata, a cat contemplating goldfish and a boy on a water buffalo.

Twenty six years ago, Xiao Tingting was an average primary school student who admired her art teachers. She became celebrity of sorts in her school when she won the gold medal at the International Children's Art Exhibition in former Yugoslavia at the age of 10.

"Art teachers were like my childhood heroes," Xiao recalls.

Now Xiao has become the childhood hero of her own students and of her own daughter, Sun Yucen, who won the gold medal at the 29th International Children's Art Exhibition in Japan in 1999 at the age of five.

Xiao, along with six other art teachers and 15 primary school students, were invited to the Shanghai Children's Palace to display children's paintings from rural Suining County in Jiangsu over the weekend.

The county is known as "China's cradle of children's painting" for its charming, folk-art-like fanciful paintings - primitive, spontaneous, intelligent and humorous. Since last year the paintings have been given as diplomatic gifts to dignitaries.

The secret? Practice, practice, practice.

Five days a week for an hour after primary school and on Saturdays. Spontaneity is encouraged and a child's eye for the everyday detail: ducks in a stream flowing by a doorstep, a cantata of frogs, a farm wife feeding chickens, dragon boats, a boy swatting pests, a girl looking up a birds, boys on a water buffalo, a greedy cat curled around a goldfish bowl.

An hour's flight from Shanghai, the county is remote and pastoral. It became famous since Xiao, along with six other children from Suining, won gold medals in the International Children's Art Exhibition in 1981. They won part of the group prize for China, which won the national award at the event, collecting a total of 15 medals. Shanghai, considered a cultural center even then, only won four gold medals.

Moreover, two Suining children's paintings - "Doves of Peace" and "The Lantern Festival" - were exhibited in the headquarters of the United Nations in New York when they won honorable mention at the International Children's Art Exhibition at the UN Thanksgiving Day in 1989.

Xiao's 1981 winning work, "Free Exercise," featured 28 female gymnasts in different movements on a blue background. The picture is real and imaginative; it looks as if the athletes could fly off the paper.

This is typical of the Suining children's paintings - no purposeful painting techniques are apparent. Yet they are filled with the innovation and freshness of a child, reflected in the vibrant colors, the interesting shapes they draw and the exaggerated movements they depict.

"I think innocent illustration of the countryside life is the highlight of the Suining children's paintings. So, I never wanted to limit my students to any techniques or styles," Xiao tells Shanghai Daily.

It is reflected in her daughter's winning painting "Owls." No adults would have drawn owls like that, with dance-like poses and yellow faces with human expressions.

Xiao and her daughter Sun are only two cases among the thousands of child painters in the past 50 years of Suining's art education. Today, the county still fosters children's art.

Li Sijia was one of 15 children visiting Shanghai and a typical Suining child artist. They were invited to draw with more than 80 local and overseas kids at Shanghai Children's Palace.

Cute eight-year-old Li wears a bright jacket and pink hair band. But as she sketches a silhouette, she seems to have more determination and concentration than her peers from Shanghai.

The outline looks like a country house with a yard except the house is round. Li pauses before coloring as she considers the 12 colorful crayons at hand.

Xiao encourages Li to "be bold and don't think too hard." Li picks up both the orange and the purple crayons for her house.

Xiao says Li belongs to the drawing class in the Suicheng Primary School where she teaches. The group works for one hour every afternoon after school as well as on Saturday afternoons.

The county is reproducing the art as souvenirs, though not yet on a large scale. Only one child artist has risen to prominence as an artist in England, county officials say; most other children have gone on to other fields.

"Children's art is like the name card for our county," says Jiang Guoxing, a county official. "We hope it will attract investment."

The county government has consistently promoted children's art because it helps develop intelligence, creativity, initiative and self-expression. The art is a way to develop a well-rounded personality.

"The children in the drawing group represent a higher average grade academically compared with their peers," says Jiang.

His observation merits a second thought. In the case of Suicheng Primary School, Xiao notes that the drawing group is the most attractive among all after-school activities, possibly due to Suining's reputation for children's art. Admission is very competitive, as the teachers review not only children's artwork but also their grades in other classes.

Since the county and its children have excelled in painting, perhaps they could consider expanding their efforts to other fields of art. Other areas in China also could learn from Suining's success in developing children's art.

More than 15,000 of the children's paintings have been exhibited in more than 70 countries and regions since they first were exhibited in 1978.

(Shanghai Daily March 22, 2007)