[Video/WeChat account: hafbwx]

With a history of more than 500 years, sugar painting is a traditional folk handicraft that involves making figurines with melted sugar. Liu Shengbao from Hai'an, Nantong, is a master of this handicraft.

Children wait for the sugar paintings made by Liu Shengbao, a master of this handicraft. [Photo/WeChat account: hafbwx]

Liu learned sugar painting from his grandfather and father when he was a child. He began practicing the handicraft in his teens.

His father told him that sugar painting integrates the skills of traditional Chinese painting, paper cutting, as well as calligraphy, and that his skills would become superb only by practicing continuously, his father said.

From the 1990s, Liu started researching three-dimensional sugar painting, hollowed-out sugar painting, and colored sugar painting. He said that he needs to make innovations to bring vigor to the gradually disappearing handicraft.

A tiger-shaped sugar figurine made by Liu. [Photo/WeChat account: hafbwx]

In old times, sugar painting functioned as a way to earn bread and butter while it is more of a form of cultural inheritance for Liu.

Therefore, he said that he feels a sense of achievement for sticking with this handicraft for over 30 years when he meets children whose parents ate his sugar paintings when they were young and who also show interests in his sugar paintings.