Yangjiabu woodblock prints are traditional folk prints handed down in Weifang, and as the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage, they are one of the three major woodblock prints in China, together with Yangliuqing in Tianjin and Taoyu in Suzhou.

Every year, the Spring Festival is the peak season for the sale of New Year prints. What is the theme of this year's New Year paintings, follow the reporter's lens together to Yangjiabu to see.

Early in the morning, Yang Navy and his wife Sun Lili, the craftsman of woodblock prints in Yangjiabu, Weifang, came to the shop, picked out the line and colour plates, first fixed the wooden plates on the table and the rice paper, and then used a homemade brush to brush on the wooden plates with the required colour.

Yangjiabu woodblock prints are a national intangible cultural heritage and are loved by everyone for their bright colours and rich content. Of course, to print the different contents of the paintings, one needs enough wooden plates. In Yang Navy's shop alone, there are more than 700 sets of woodblock plates in stock.

Yang Navy, an artisan of woodblock prints in Yangjiabu, Weifang, told reporters, "The older woodblocks in his shop, from the late Qing Dynasty, print out a New Year painting called Zeng Fu Cai Shen."

Although it is a traditional old craft, but every year at the Spring Festival, the theme content of the New Year paintings will be updated and adjusted, this year is the Year of the Tiger in the lunar calendar, the theme is naturally inseparable from the tiger.

As the Chinese New Year draws near, the paintings are at their peak season. Yang Hai says that one person needs to make more than 400 New Year paintings a day.

Because woodblock prints are manual work, the development of inheritors has become the key. It is understood that at present, Yangjiabu woodblock prints have 25 inheritors at the district level or above, more than 200 practitioners, more than 23 million prints per year, with sales revenue of more than 100 million yuan. In Yangjiabu West Changxing Painting Shop in Weifang City's Hanting District, New Year's painting inheritor Yang Zhibin is counting the New Year's paintings of the tiger.

Yang Zhibin told reporters that every year, the theme of the Chinese New Year paintings will be changed once, many new ideas, new things appear, immediately after the New Year paintings can be reflected in. In recent years, they have combined the traditional paintings with the current aesthetics and created a number of anti-epidemic paintings. These paintings are a combination of traditional New Year painting techniques and modern computer design, which has contributed to the progress of society.

During this time, the New Year painting inheritors are not only busy with the rush to sell the paintings, but also meet together to write and deliver the Spring Festival couplets in the villages, bringing the flavour of the New Year to the lives of the people.