What is Minhwa coloring? ft. Minhwa Coloring Class hosted by KCC Canada

Welcome back to another blog post! Today, I will be reviewing the latest Korean Cultural Center (KCC) Canada event I had the chance to attend. Based out of Ottawa, Canada, KCC is a government institution established in 2016 whose mandate is to enhance Korea-Canada relations by promoting mutual understanding between Koreans and Canadians through the sharing of Korean culture.

In honor of Chuseok (추석), also known as Korean Thanksgiving, KCC Canada organized a special Minhwa coloring class with instructor Ms. Jungah Kim from South Korea, the creative director of coloringme. If you are interested in seeing more of Ms. Kim’s work, you can check out her Instagram @coloringme_official or her YouTube channel @coloringme. She also created her own Minhwa coloring books, which you can find on Amazon, as linked here.

About the event

After pre-registering for this event, which was held on Zoom, attendees were sent a kit including a custom handmade coloring scroll and traditional Chuseok snacks. The event lasted 90 minutes, starting with an introduction to Minhwa and a quick lesson on coloring basics. This was followed by a one-hour coloring + Q&A session with relaxing piano music.

What is Minwha?

Minhwa is made up of the word min, meaning “the people” and hwa, meaning “drawing”. This Korean traditional art became particularly popular during the Joseon dynasty. It represents hopes for long lives with good health, wealth and prosperity in daily life. There are multiple genres of Minwha. For this coloring session, our custom drawing by instructor Ms. Jungah Kim is a portion of Irworobongdo 일월오봉도. Ir’ stands for the ‘sun’, ‘Wor’ stands for the moon, ‘O’ is the korean word for ‘five’, and ‘Bong-do’ means ‘peak’. All together, the name signifies <Sun, Moon and Five Peaks>. It symbolizes the balance of the negative and the positive and the authority of the royal family. In olden times, only the king could own such painting.

Photo: Instructor Jungah Kim's custom design

A lot of effort goes into creating one work of minwha. Traditional minhwa uses paint but it is possible to use other mediums. For this class, we used coloring pencils which are easier and faster than the traditional method.

Basics of Minwha Coloring

Coloring with pencils includes 3 steps: outline, layering and gradient.

Step 1) Outline

• The first step is to outline the painting with a darker-colored pencil. We went with a forest green, but Ms. Kim mentioned we could pick any other color we wanted.

• We then followed up with a second yellow outline

Step 2) Layering

• We filled the painting by lightly applying a midtone blue color for the background. Ms. Kim recommended not to apply too much pressure so that the color is not too dark. This will allow us to better mix colors and create more colors with limited colored pencils.

Step 3) Gradient

• We made the blue darker towards the top of the painting by applying harder pressure, and then applied lighter pressure as we worked our way down the painting to create a gradient.

• We also mixed in a green color, particularly in the light blue areas at the bottom

For the circle on the left, we had the choice between coloring it as a sun or as a moon. I chose to make it a sun using this red color.

In case you were curious, this is what my colored drawing looked like:

Overall experience

I really enjoyed my first Minhwa coloring experience, and I am pleasantly surprised by the final product considering I am not much of an artist. Ms. Jungah Kim was very welcoming and knowledgeable. The coloring session was interactive with Q&A but also therapeutic with soft piano music playing in the background. If you get a chance to try out Minhwa coloring, I would highly recommend you to do so!

Please check out KCC Canada’s website to stay updated about amazing events like this one! KCC Canada is currently hosting 2021 Korea Week from September 20 to October 13, 2021. I have attached a picture of the schedule below, but make sure to also check out this link for more details and to register for any upcoming events that might interest you.

As always, thank you for reading my blog post. See you in the next one!

Tash