In an art studio in Wuhan, Hubei province, a delivery worker busily packaged 1,500 original Chinese ink drawings and calligraphic works all produced by Rong Zhengmao, a national senior artist and craftsman, who hadn't left his studio for two weeks.

But these works represented only a fraction of Rong's larger project to say thanks to the medical workers who helped Wuhan defeat COVID-19. They constituted the most recent batch of art in a project he said will take three years to complete.

Since Spring Festival last year, he has produced more than 8,500 drawings and sent them around the country in gratitude to those who came to the rescue after the coronavirus outbreak.