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Butler County's great daily newspaper

Senior center offers Chinese brush painting classes

Dorothy Weisberg, manager of the Evans City senior cente, shows off some of the results of her latest class.

EVANS CITY — With a delicate hand, Ella Mae Smith transformed heavy black paint into fluffy crane feathers as she swept lines with her brush onto paper.

“At 87 years old, I had never picked up this type of brush,” said Smith of Evans City.

Chinese brush painting, which takes place at 10:30 a.m. Tuesdays at the Evans City Senior Center located inside the St. Matthias Church Hall, 426 E. Main St., is a creative learning opportunity for seniors begun last summer by the senior center's manager.

Smith's favorite paintings were the nine Christmas cards she painted for each of her grandchildren, she said.

“It's not that easy,” she said about the technique.

In three hours, Dorothy Weisberg, center manager, painted the four lessons for the month which is based on the perspectives of black, white and gray.

“I've been an artist all my life,” said Weisberg, who leads the Chinese brush painting session.

Painting and drawing are ways she relaxes, she said.

This is an excerpt from a story in Tuesday's Butler Eagle.

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