Chinese Painter Uses Tongue As a Brush

Monday, October 10, 2005 9:21:09 AM

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - Enjoy painting but fed up with those hard-to-clean brushes? Chinese businessman Wang Yide has a way around the hassle: He paints with his tongue.

Wang, who runs a photo shop in the quiet southwestern town of Jianyan, recently gave a demonstration for journalists from a newspaper in the area, the Chengdu Evening News. He tongue-painted pictures of a lotus flower and a laughing Buddha.

"He was somewhat embarrassed when he slurped and drooled ink during his painting," the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the newspaper.

Wang, who Xinhua said was about 50 years old, said he learned the skill from the technique's inventor, Huang Ernan, who died last year.

The report said Wang warned the uninitiated against trying the art without proper guidance, saying inks and pigments could be poisonous. It didn't say, however, how he avoided poisoning himself.