Handpainting a rigid fan.

People usually use fans for keeping cool in hot weather, some people even use them to hide their modesty from onlookers or potential mates, but it has been a tool used by many ancient civilisations.

Fans come in quite a number of forms, the one we see more often is the kind which spread's out and folds back into a handle stick. These folding fan's are easier to carry around but have ridges on the leaf due to it's folding nature.

The rigid fan is almost like a racket, it's got a handle and then a circular mount.

Fan's have been significant in Chinese culture throughout history and were tools carried by both men and women. Fan's would be classified into different kinds and used selectively for various functions and events. It's treated as an accessory and is often used to determine the social class of it's owner.

The fan's decoration is therefore very important because it attaches your personal taste and character onto the design of the fan. Through this decoration, people were able to gauge not just your class, but also your taste in the arts.

Rigid fan's were common up to the end of the Song Dynasty, and the folding fan's became more popular after that.

As you can see, the process of painting the fan begins with a simple line sketch outline and then the filling in with paint. It is almost the same process used in traditional Chinese painting. For this reason, the fan is often used just like a painting, as something to be admired and used as decoration in the house. It's real function is often ignored.

With my minimal exposure to the arts, I was actually quite proud of my fan. It's now hanging in my bedroom at home and I think it too will be used as decoration rather than a functional fan.