Sun Xiuying takes her wheat straw paintings to an exhibition. [China.com.cn]

A farmer from Zhangye, northwest China's Gansu Province, has been praised as a national folk art expert for making wheat straw paintings despite having no professional training and only elementary school education.
Sun Xiuying was born into a rural peasant family in Minle County. She was interested in painting from a young age, but her impoverished family and heavy workload meant she had little time to practice.
However, her artistic ability started to flourish after she saw an introduction to the process of dried straw collage-making on TV. It occurred to her that the fields in the countryside around her home were full of the materials she needed to start.
Copying a traditional New Year picture pasted on the wall, she taught herself, and after several days of efforts, she finished her first work of a few orchid grasses and a small butterfly.
Straw painting is one of the unique handicrafts of the Han people. It began during the Sui Dynasty (581-618). A complete work must go through fumigation, steaming, bleaching, cutting, weaving and other processes, depending on the luster and texture of the straw.
Since she studied painting in 2006, she has made many outstanding picture. Her most common subjects are flowers, rocks, birds and numerous scenes from nature. She was awarded a second prize at a city-level creative design contest for hand-woven products.
So far, Sun has also participated in various exhibitions held in cities of Xi'an, Lanzhou and Zhangye, and has received widespread recognition.
In 2011, she was awarded as an excellent artist of folk culture by Zhangye Women's Federation. In 2014, she was certified by Zhangye Municipal Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security.
In 2015, she was awarded the honorary title of Gansu Provincial Labor Model.

Sun Xiuying's work [China.com.cn]