The Versatile Master Artist

The old man and Gu Tongxiang agreed on the next time to play chess, and then carefully held two paintings, contentedly strolling home to frame them properly.

By the time Gu Weijing saw Old Wu out, it was already noon.

He had a few bowls of soup noodles in the morning and was still quite full, so he skipped lunch and went straight back to his painting room.

He adjusted his mood slightly, and once he was completely calm, he took out the underdrawing of ”Sunshine Orphanage” from the scroll tube that he drafted yesterday.

Considering these past few days,

The church renovation construction team is pressing for time to install some electrical factory and pipeline setups, which might be quite noisy.

After saying goodbye to Koizumi Katsuko last night, Gu Weijing took the opportunity to put this underdrawing in his art bucket and bring it home.

He plans to fully complete this piece during the Farmers’ Day holiday downtime.

Gu Weijing stretched the canvas taut on the easel,

Before starting,

He reviewed the main points of the upcoming strokes from beginning to end based on the sketch on the underdrawing in front of him.

Sharpening the knife doesn’t hinder cutting firewood.

Gu Weijing’s simulation in his mind was extremely meticulous.

The theoretical details of the New Style Painting have been internalized and mastered thoroughly in his mind.

The next step is to cook together sketching, oil painting, and Chinese painting like a chef following a recipe.

If successful, the fragrance and features blend and highlight each other’s flavors, offering a refreshing outlook that blends Eastern ethos with Western flair.

If failed, it would become an unsettling dark dish, like his previous ”Sunshine Orphanage.”

To concoct this dish properly,

Besides having the knowledge card as a recipe, it tests the chef’s skills.

The painting part ahead is not like sketching the underdrawing with condensed expression, where each detail needs to be precise with each stroke.

Every detail must be careful with each stroke and line.

He needs to showcase the elegant shaping curves and light-dark effects of sketches, giving objects in the painting a strong sense of depth and dimensionality.

Additionally, utilizing the lively and vibrant colors of oil painting to enhance highlights and shadows, enrich the visual focus, and employ color perspective principles to create a sense of reality and space.

Finally, using the refined and ethereal brush techniques to imbue the painting with a profound mood and divine intention.

Thoughts on three techniques continuously intertwine, mix together, and refine to the minutest detail.

”Paint the background first, then the foreground, and finally refine the details on the characters’ color layers.”

Gu Weijing pondered for a long time and finally felt ready.

He then picked up the brush and started to mix colors, draw lines, and paint, overlaying more refined color details on the basic outline.

Just as he started,

Gu Weijing immediately felt the pressure.

He pressed hard with the brush, and as the brush tip moved, a ton of matching painting information surged through his mind.

If the mental information volume for Chinese painting was [1], now the volume he needed to handle was [3].

Nearly triple the information density.

He needed to focus on the contrast and saturation difference in paint texture between oil painting and Chinese painting and harmonize the differing lines between Chinese painting and sketches, using the practice thought when sketching to draw lines.

Even in the sketching techniques invented by Lang Shining, the usage of oil painting and sketch techniques is not entirely the same as traditional oil painting and requires special fine-tuning according to the picture.

While Gu Weijing painted, fine beads of sweat gradually seeped from his forehead.

He must stay fully focused to control the brush along the mental trajectory, painting steadily without making significant errors.

”Steady, paint seriously, take your time.” He muttered to himself.

Pressure is pressure.

Unlike drawing flowers and plants, line drawing capturing human expressions is originally the most complex part of the New Style Painting Technique.

If he could solve such a difficult technique easily, that would indeed be strange.

Lang Shining’s own painting skills may not be considered the pinnacle, but that’s also compared to a handful of the world’s top masters.

Even relatively weak Tier Three Professional standards of Chinese Painting techniques are enough to effortlessly surpass Gu Weijing.

So experiencing pressure while painting was completely within Gu Weijing’s expectations.

”This is a good thing.” Gu Weijing comforted himself.

Large pressure is still better than the unsettling sense of fragmentation.

Feeling pressure itself is progress.

When Gu Weijing was painting the first ”Sunshine Orphanage,” he was severely tormented by fragmentation from start to finish.

He couldn’t calm down at all; even focusing entirely on painting was difficult, running purely on willpower.

Compared to then, the situation now is exponentially better.

Gu Weijing is already very content.

Initially, when he started painting, he occasionally thought about matters in the system panel’s [Series Quest - Sea of All Rivers] step two.

Later on,

Gu Weijing completely forgot about all that, staying focused only on the board and canvas in front of him.

He felt himself painting now.

Like driving a heavy steering mudhead truck downhill towards the target.

While Gu Weijing is the driver using all his energy to fight the steering wheel.

He must be cautious, extremely cautious to maneuver the truck on the proper path.

While painting, Gu Weijing discovered something different.

While dealing with parts related to Chinese painting and sketching techniques, the brush tip felt heavy and sluggish. In many cases, Gu Weijing needed to think for seconds before confidently making a stroke.

But when dealing with parts more related to oil painting, the pressure he felt was much lighter, and his brushwork and wrist movements felt more nimble and at ease.

He quickly understood that this was probably because his oil painting technique had just broken through Tier Two Professional, making his brush control skills significantly higher than the other two.