The paintings on the kites are rich and colorful.There are Red-crowned Cranes with Children,Peacocks Flaunting Their Tails,Propitious Bats and Phoenix Spreading Their Wings,all of which symbolize auspiciousness and good luck,and fairy tales and legends like Chang’e Ascending to the Moon,The Eight Immortals,The Heavenly Fairies Scattering Blossoms and Magu, the fairy who presents birthday gifts to the Lady Queen Mother.The kite makers of Weifang have also introduced the traditional Chinese painting skills to kites. Because Yangjiabu was the birthplace of woodblock New Year paintings of Weifang,the style of kite paintings of Weifang is similar to that of local woodblock New Year paintings.Therefore,the kites of Yangjiabu are also called woodblock New Year painting kites.One of the processes in making this kind of kites is to cut the figures of human beings or animals from the newly printed woodblock New Year paintings and to paste them on the framework.Great importance is attached to painting the kites.Many of the kite makers in Weifang are masters of traditional Chinese paintings and they can merge the skills of painting with the kite’s overall appearance.The birds on the kites are so exquisite that each of their feathers is detailed;the veins of insect wings are visible;and the children,old folks and beauties are all meticulously rendered.Thus,the kites of Weifang are of extremely great ornamental value and often collected as interior decorations.
The kites of Weifang can be divided into hard-wing,soft-wing and cluster. In hard-wing, two bamboo strips form the framework of the wings and the middle part is arranged into a fixed rectangular frame, and then pasted with paper or silk to make it easy to fly high. In soft-wing, the frame of the lower part is not used but the rest of the hard-wing kite is.This makes the kite
lighter and more flexible.The subjects of the soft-wing kites are mostly flying swallows,butterflies and dragonflies.The cluster is made by stringing several kites together with one or more strings.A representative is a centipede with a dragon head.A centipede-with-dragonhead kite of several dozen feet long flying into the blue sky presents a magnificent sight.
It takes several steps to make a kite,including drafting,making the framework and pasting it with paper or silk.A test flight is also considered one of the processes.This is because a kite must not only be beautiful,but,more important,capable of being flown.Tying and binding are the two major steps in making a kite.In tying a kite,one bakes fine bamboo strips slowly on an alcohol stove and bends them into various shapes and then ties them up into different kite molds.
Wandering around Weifang feels like a dream with so many kites in a blaze of colors flying all over the sky.The restaurants hang kites over their windows as decorations;small firms and shops hang kites as their shop signs.Weifang is truly a city of kites.The kites became famous because of the city, and the city becomes beautiful because of its kites.