Photo provided to Shanghai Star

All 11 students come from different career backgrounds and they are all beginners.

"I had a sense of achievement when I saw my work framed and hung on the wall of the gallery," says Nicole Qi, a wine cellar owner in Shanghai who took five lessons and painted a picture of a snowy mountain.

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As a mother of a seven-month-old baby boy, Qi plans to paint more pictures and hang them on the walls of her house.

"Hopefully my son will be proud of me not only as a mother who makes money, but also an arty mother who has done a few paintings," Qi says.

At the moment, Jin Space is welcoming more oil painting beginners to take part in the course and launching an intermediate course for those former students is also under planning.

"The VIP oil painting salon will continue as a feature of our gallery to invite and encourage more art lovers to participate in creating art," Xu says.

Contact the writer at yuran@chinadaily.com.cn

if you go

Address: 1B, No 1191 Nanjing Road West 南京西路1191號1乙

Telephone: 186-1681-6519

Website: shop.artron.net/6046

Email: michelle.xu@xinjinjie.com