Zhou Pan《周盘》, 166.2ml, Hong Jiang Po Ni 红降坡泥, by Craftsman Zhu Shu 朱舒!~Engraving of Bamboos and Verse by Craftsman Mu Shan 牧山!~ Congratulations to Ms E.A.! 2242hrs 14th Dec 2025, Vineland! NJ!
《周盘》Zhou Pan ~ Our YiXing ZiSha Classic,
Zhu Shu chose this YiXing Classic together with our Aunt Senior Master Cao and they voted for RED (HONG) JIANG PO NI in this application, to be engraved by Mu Shan, the Engraving Craftsman.
ZiSha Art is the most amazing carrier medium, housing Five aspects of Chinese Cultural Arts!
1. Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and Craft,
2. Painting,
3. Calligraphy,
4. Poetry,
5. Engraving Art and Craft.
Hold, Use and Keep relishing all five aspects of our Chinese Culture in your daily life, in solitude, in practice, during hospitality to family and friends alike!
Savour the journey, dearest Friends :-D
Famous and beautiful Bamboo Painting chosen by Yi-Lei and Ian,
This painting is our national treasure, is now housed in the Palace Museum, and not in the hands of any private collector.
"Bamboo Branch Painting" is an ink painting on paper by the Yuan Dynasty painter Ni Zan, measuring 34 cm in height and 76.4 cm in width, and is currently housed in the Palace Museum. The main subject of the painting is a new bamboo branch, with a slender and slightly curved stem, short and dense leaves that curl upwards, and slightly drooping tips. The composition of the leaves, with their varying density, showcases the elegant vitality of the bamboo branch. On the left side of the painting is Ni Zan's own poem and the postscript "Old and Lazy, Without Joy," as well as a poem by Emperor Gaozong of the Qing Dynasty and forty-four seals from various dynasties, including eight imperial seals from the Qing court.
This work depicts bamboo in a single, rich ink wash, with the branches and leaves all pointing upwards. This departs from the common technique of contrasting ink strokes in Song and Yuan dynasty bamboo paintings, reflecting Ni Zan's artistic philosophy of "expressing the unrestrained spirit within." The calligraphy of his inscription is graceful and flowing, echoing the gnarled bamboo branches and enhancing the overall rhythm of the painting. Although the artist modestly describes himself as "old and weary," his brushwork is actually vigorous and agile, and the density and sparseness of the branches and leaves possess a natural charm.
《竹枝图》是元代画家倪瓒创作的纸本墨笔画，纵34厘米、
该作以浓墨单色绘竹，枝叶形态均呈上扬之势，
This Zhou Pan has excellent proportions, with an amazingly styled and sculpted HANDLE, which is also extremely ergonomic to hold by virtue of its width, its good mass, angulated surfaces (for better grip) and smoothly chamferred edges! Craftsman Zhu Shu also delights us with the equally amazing SPOUT with four angulations on the upper half, and a rounded aspect on the lower half.
Clear cut shoulder line, with a delicious ever-so-slightly curved three faces (they are not exactly flat!), due to Zhu Shu's very careful crafting and patting of the side slab!
This Zhou Pan work has a VERY wide top opening.
The LID KNOB is the very cute and delicious stately miniature of the whole pot.
Handle, Body, Lid, Lid Knob and Spout.
Clay.
Engraving.
Artistic direction from the whole team.
Outstanding work and execution by Zhu Shu and Mu Shan at the end!
Mastered perfectly by Zhu Shu.
Each taking a week to accomplish from start to finish. Zhu Shu's and Mu Shan's labour of love and heart warming cooperation!
Superbly pleasing to hold and an understated ZiSha classic work on your tea table!
Lu Xue Feng and Cao Lan Fang chose it to be matched with our Cao Family's Hong Jiang Po Ni clay.
Yi-Lei and ian chose the verses for Engraving Craftsman Mu Shan, while Mu Shan exercises his own artistic direction for the delicate pictorial engraving of bamboos.
We wish all our dearest friends in you, to enjoy it, use it, savour it and feel the aura of our Chinese YiXing Art.
Let us cheer Zhu Shu and Mu Shan together on their excellent and beautiful collaborative work! A piece that has gone through many stages from the start, the ideation, detailed design and measurements, clay preparation, diligent practice and the final work which is presented for you!
Assuming the user is right-handed,
Calligraphy faces the Guests,
"入水文光动，抽空绿影春。
出自唐代李贺的《竹》
春光里中空的竹子，把绿色的倩影，倒映在波光粼粼的水面上：轻轻摇摆，轻轻动荡……
此句描绘了光线与水面的互动以及春日里竹叶映水的景象，让人仿佛置身于春意盎然的景致之中。
Engraved by Craftsman Mu Shan here in Kai Shu 楷书 style.
This verse is written by the Poet Li He, in his poem titled <Bamboos>,
"In the spring sunshine, the hollow bamboo stalks cast their graceful green shadows on the shimmering water: swaying gently, rippling softly...
This sentence depicts the interaction between light and water, as well as the scene of bamboo leaves reflected in the water in spring, making the reader feel as if they are in a vibrant spring landscape.
Dearest friends, enjoy our tea.
Pictorial engraving of the sterling bamboos, faces the Tea Master,
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GRAND NEWS! Craftsman Zhu Shu joins us!!! Craftsman Yi Xiao Ran, together with Senior Master Cao Lan Fang and Senior Master Lu Xue Feng talked to her and another lady Craftsman Yang Pin Ting, in June of 2025, and convinced both of them to join us! Zhu Shu is a very skilful Craftsman whom we have observed and scrutinised, and hence join hand in hand to be great professional Artisans with Craftsman Zhang Huan to share our studio in working on delightful ZiSha Artworks for ALL OF YOU Dearest Friends!!! Our Cao Family is delighted to have Zhu Shu, a very hardworking, young lady Craftsman to be together in this happy team here in YiXing besides the River Li 蠡河 at Shu Shan 蜀山!
Craftsman Zhu Shu 朱舒 has taken a strong affinity to Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art, and has dedicated herself to crafting small volumes, excellent works for YiXing Association and events. We decided to support her and convinced her to join us at RealZiSha, as we all insist on only ZiSha works of HIGH QUALITY. Hand-picked by Senior Cao Lan Fang and Senior Master Lu Xue Feng over observation of the past decade as she works alone, and oft times challenged in her livelihood, and they have also taken her in as their very hardworking disciple and our CORE COLLEAGUE. She will be featuring delightful works regularly together with Zhang Huan!
Craftsman Zhu Shu is NOW proudly one of us and she will be featuring consistently, and she also works closely with Yi Xiao Ran (featured in our home page video), Zhang Huan and also Chen Fa Chu (together both being the longest serving Craftsmen with us). Craftsman Zhu Shu is extremely diligent and talented at the same time, and very focussed now in producing her best work for you friends! Her lines and detailing speak of her EXTREME CARE AND TIME taken to craft each part, each pot.
Only a very well-trained, experienced and skilful Craftsman will be able to understand the curves and proportions perfectly, and here beautifully captured and crafted by Craftsman Zhu Shu.
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Again, another tremendous labor of love by our trusted and committed collaborative Craftsman Zhang Huan. It is a team effort and we thank you dearest Friends for your grandest support to the honest and the dedicated Craftsladies and Craftsmen here left to fend the Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art.
Hold one, hold up one, swing his work around. Carefully examine his Fully-Handmade work. Look at it from afar, from near, and it will grow on you. The whole piece grow on you because 1) he takes reference from what the Senior Masters chose for him, 2) and he amazingly crafts them up EXACTLY as to what the Senior Masters want from him: extreme fine detailing with MUCH THOUGHT on each part, with MUCH TIME spent on every part, section. Because this is what Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art should be, and HOW FULLY-HANDMADE ZISHA ART is so different from and light years ahead of the ubiquitous jigger-machined pots and half-handmade pots masquerading under the sales tagline of "fully-handmade zisha" pots. These latter JM/HHM pots are made in what we call 流水线 a.k.a. 'Factory-Line operation' whereby the main pot body after being jigger-machined or coming off from the mould, is passed to the next worker who fits on the spout, and subsequently this second worker will pass the pot on to another worker who will in turn fit on the handle. Continuing so, the pressed lid is likewise passed to another worker who fit on the lid knob. EACH WORKER has NO IDEA what the other one is doing, and they are always working on fixed time lines stated by the boss. For example, the worker being "passed the baton" a pot with the spout just fixed onto the body by his colleague, will only focus on fixing on the handle, with nil to little regard to WHETHER THE HANDLE fixed on will be cohesive with the spout. Each worker has NO idea of HOW THE FINAL POT WILL LOOK LIKE. Beyond poor craftsmanship and clay, the result of such processes are ugly pots with poor cohesiveness which experienced Artists, Craftsmen and collectors will tell from a metre away. Experienced people in us, do not need to pick up a pot to check whether it is fully-handmade or made of zisha, we can tell from a metre away just by looking at the pot.
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The keywords are: Detailing and Cohesiveness.
A GOOD Fully-Handmade ZiSha Work combines great detailing and cohesiveness.
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Explained, https://www.realzisha.com/blogs/news/actual-zisha-landscape-at-yixing , the Craftsman by selling his hard-worked ZiSha craft at $190-$240, $45-$65 goes to the cost of the craft, inclusive of the fees for the firing for the kiln operator (three times per pot), the packaging boxes, and between $32 to $52 for the clay (Zi Ni Di Cao Qing, Duan Ni and upwards) used per pot. Craftsman takes 3 days (fastest 2.5days) to craft a pot.
If he works 30 days a month without a single day of rest (no family time), he will craft 10-12 pots.
If he crafts for 25 days (five days of rest a month), his output will be 8-10 pots.
The success rate for Zi Ni (e.g. Di Cao Qing, Lao Zi Ni, Da Shui Tan etc) and Duan Ni (e.g. Jiang Po Ni, Qing Hui Duan, etc) is 70% on average. Some times the whole batch of 10 may fail. We have seen our Craftsmen suffer like this very often.
The success rate for Zhu Ni (e.g. Xiao Mei Yao Zhu Ni) pots is 60%, or 70% with most optimism and at the very, very best. Unfortunately.
All of us at RealZiSha of course, hope for one another, professional colleagues and all, that all the pots will survive firing at the kiln successfully.
[For ZiSha models/designs that are very challenging and more complicated to craft, the time taken to craft will be longer, and the failure rate will be higher as well. Zi Sha by its virtue, have the highest shrinkage rate of all ceramic clay. Zi Ni and Duan Ni thus have that 70% success rate, while Zhu Ni has even higher shrinkage rate and thus even lower success rate (the lowest of all ceramic clay.)]
Our Craftsmen are wholeheartedly committed to the cause of Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and their strictness with their craft and dedication earn our respect. We give a big Thank You all of these Craftsmen, for they are saving what is our common precious tea culture: Tea + Fully-Handmade ZiSha Art and Craft. Your support is critical to their livelihood and the existence of this craft for all of the tea fraternity.
Thank you Friends!
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Our Senior Masters have given Craftsman Zhu Shu the full blessings with all of us. She is fully-fledged at RealZiSha. Most important, after all the hard work our team have put in collectively,
We are very happy that she is now with all of you.
Presenting Zhu Shu and her hard-worked and fine-worked Pieces for you. One by one.
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