Together with his students, Bao Chunlei, a rural art teacher in Yunnan Province, turns pebbles collected from riverside into amazing works of art, which drew a lot of attention as soon as they were posted online.   

Bao Chunlei is an art teacher in the Lengdun Primary School in Baohe Village, Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province. He is also one of the five Yunnan winners of the “Jack Ma Rural Teachers Award” in 2017.

Bao loves painting since his childhood. After working as a teacher, he found many children also like drawing. But due to inadequate learning conditions, they can’t fully expose their talents. After careful observation, Bao came up with an idea that he could teach the kids to draw on pebbles which could be found everywhere nearby the school.

Bao took his students to riversides to collect pebbles and teach them how to draw on the stones. Under his guidance, the kids quickly mastered the painting skills. Different animals, faces, and even minions are painted on the stones.

On Jan 23, Bao participated in the “Exchange Your New Year Wishes with Rural Teachers” charity activity along with other winners of the 2017 “Jack Ma Rural Teachers Award”. During the event, he expressed his wish that he wanted to exchange some of the stone paintings for 30 down jackets for the kids in his school.

As soon as the painted pebbles were posted online, reviews poured in. “That’s amazing!” “They are works of art!” Many people expressed their praises. Within 40 minutes, Bao received 30 exchange requests. By Jan 31, more than 30 down jackets have been received by the school kids and more are on the way.

Bao said he is very happy that people like the stone paintings. Now he is looking forward to making use of the 3-year-long learning opportunity provided by the Jack Ma Foundation to bring more new ideas to his students.