You can draw according to different themes and types.
Themes
The themes of New Year paintings are all-encompassing. There are more than 2,000 types of paintings in total, which can be called an encyclopedia of folk life. It can be roughly divided into four aspects:
(1) Immortals and mascots
This is the basic theme of New Year paintings. Immortals are the main content of early New Year pictures, and they occupy a large proportion in New Year pictures. Mascots include auspicious animals and birds such as lions, tigers, deers, cranes, and phoenixes, flowers such as lotuses and peonies, and fictitious objects such as money trees and cornucopias. They express the meaning of auspiciousness through metaphors, symbols, or homonyms, and express the ability to ward off evil and prevent disasters. The theme of welcoming blessings and auspiciousness.
(2) Secular Life
Folk artists express real life through their own observations and feelings. This type of subject matter is less common than other subjects in New Year pictures. The themes of secular life mainly include people's livelihood and work, seasonal customs, current affairs and anecdotes, etc.
(3) Doll Beauty
This theme occupies a large proportion in folk New Year pictures, expressing people's good wishes for having a child early and for a harmonious couple.
(4) Stories and legends
This part is mostly based on historical events, folk tales, myths and legends, notebook novels and operas, among which opera themes account for the largest proportion. Common examples of this type of New Year pictures include Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, Water Margin, Dream of Red Mansions, White Snake, Cowherd and Weaver Girl, etc. People often increase their knowledge and receive traditional moral education through such themes.
Types
In terms of types, New Year pictures can be roughly divided into six categories:
(1) Door God Type
New Year Posters The New Year pictures on the door are called door pictures, which are the earliest form of New Year pictures. "Door God" is the earliest and most important category in door paintings.
(2) Auspicious celebrations
This type of New Year pictures directly express the people’s yearning for a better life. Common ones include: "Blessings from Heavenly Officials", "Sustainable Years of Success", "Full House of Wealth and Honor", "Advancing Officials and Promoting Luxury", etc. Auspicious New Year pictures are the most popular among the people.
(3) Customs type
New Year pictures that express folk life are a portrayal of real life by folk artists. Full of rich flavor of life. After the late Qing Dynasty, current affairs, customs and humorous New Year pictures also appeared, such as "Mouse Marries Girl", "Monkey Grabbing Straw Hat", etc. can also be classified into this category.
(4) Opera Category
New Year pictures that express opera stories. Its form is similar to comic strips, group paintings or literary illustrations. It emerged in the late Qing Dynasty, and all famous opera stories will be reflected in New Year pictures. Such as "The Meeting of Heroes", "Stealing the Immortal Grass", "General of the Yang Family", "The Romance of the West Chamber", "Lotus Lantern", etc.
(5) Symbols
A type of New Year painting that takes the form of statues of gods and talismans and aims to ward off evil spirits and bring good fortune. This type of New Year pictures has a strong religious connotation, and was later added with the meaning of praying for people to ward off evil spirits. Different from the statues of gods in door paintings, the statues of gods in this type of New Year paintings have corresponding niches. Some need to be worshiped with incense, and some need to be burned as paper horses. Talismans are considered to have the function of warding off evil spirits and controlling the house. They are generally composed of words and patterns, such as "Tong'an Bao Talisman", "Tai Chi Bagua Talisman", etc. With the elimination of superstitious ideas, these New Year pictures have become historical relics.
(6) Miscellaneous paintings
This category includes lantern paintings (paper used to paste lanterns during the Lantern Festival), window paintings (paper used to paste windows during the New Year), and dust paper (paper for hanging cupboards and dish racks during the Chinese New Year), table paintings (paper for hanging on the side of the Eight Immortals table during the Chinese New Year), wallpaper (paper for hanging on the walls during the Chinese New Year), cloth paintings (hanging on the street during the Chinese New Year) New Year pictures, commonly known as "hanging"), flower and bird characters (Chinese character patterns composed of flower and bird graphics, a folk New Year picture between calligraphy and painting) and calendar New Year pictures (a commercial advertisement that appeared in Shanghai in 1914, Later, it became New Year pictures, which are also called charcoal paintings because they are mostly painted with charcoal pens.
Example pictures
Introduction to New Year pictures: New Year pictures are a type of Chinese painting, which began with the ancient "door god paintings". They are one of the Han folk arts and one of the common folk handicrafts.
During the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, it was officially called New Year paintings. It is a painting genre unique to the Han Chinese and an art form popular among rural people in China. Most of them are used for posting during the New Year to decorate the environment, which means wishing the New Year auspiciousness and joy, hence the name. Traditional folk New Year pictures are mostly made with woodblock watermarks. Old New Year pictures have different names depending on the size of the picture and the amount of processing. The whole big one is called "Gong Jian", and the three-folded one is called "Sancai". The ones that are processed more and more carefully are called "Hua Gongjian" and "Hua Sancai". The colors painted with gold powder are called "Jin Gong Jian" and "Jin San Cai". Products produced before June are called "Green Edition" and products produced after July and August are called "Autumn Edition".