The Versatile Master Artist

If she had to keep something, Anna actually preferred English Shorthair cats, silent elves.

This Springer Spaniel didn’t look pretty as a pup, and its lineage wasn’t pure enough.

Its two large ears, like palm fans, even seemed a bit rustic.

Compared to those puppies worth seventy to eighty thousand, or even a hundred thousand Euros, in the arms of high-society ladies, which could win European pet beauty contests and were as cute as little elves, August’s lineage was totally like a country bumpkin’s unworthy of showing off.

In pet shops, it was considered a low-cost item.

Even the staff repeatedly confirmed with the aunt, who was dressed in palpable opulence, whether she really wanted this mongrel priced at only 1160 Pounds before completing the sale with complete puzzlement.

When the aunt wheeled Anna’s wheelchair out of the store, she could still hear the staff inside regretful for missing a big deal.

”Anna, you’re a strong child, but you can’t live alone forever, you must try to love something.”

”Biologically speaking, the intelligence of dogs is much higher than that of cats, reaching the level of a few-year-old child. They can easily understand human commands, enjoy music, and can even tell if their owner is happy by smell.” Aunt explained while stroking her hair.

”Many beautiful show dogs are specially bred by breeding companies for the wealthy’s preferences. They have fragile, delicate skeletons, and their lifespan is less than half of normal dogs, often dying of respiratory failure or paralysis. This puppy, though looks a bit silly, is very healthy. It can accompany you for many years in my stead until you meet the one you truly love.”

The aunt was right.

At that time, August had just been born, a palm-sized ball that even Anna as a little girl could easily hold in her arms.

Now the aunt has been resting in the family graveyard of Melk Abbey for a long time.

Yet August is still very healthy.

He’s nine years old this year, already a big dog half a meter long and weighing close to 60 pounds.

Except in very rare cases of extreme longevity,

A Springer Spaniel’s normal lifespan is about eleven to fourteen years.

A nine-year-old August, translated to human years, might have started growing white hair, but fortunately, he shows no signs of aging yet.

Occasionally taking him to the city center with a caregiver for a stroll, if August is in the mood, he can still chase other people’s pets in the sun, making them jump around like rabbits.

And Miss Elina, she no longer cares at all about the dog’s lineage.

”Remember the story from ’The Little Prince’ you loved as a child? As long as you spend enough time with it, watching it grow little by little, bathe it, groom its fur, play fetch, or sit in your wheelchair with it at sunset, or even appreciate art together, you’ll eventually grow fond of it.”

”At that time, August will be lovelier than all the beautiful lady dogs in the world combined for you.” Back then, when Aunt inscribed its name on a tennis ball with a marker, her tone was like that of a profound prophet.

Thinking of this,

Anna withdrew her thoughts from the past, sighed softly, and affectionately patted the Springer Spaniel’s rabbit-like furry large ears.

She withdrew her hand, her fingertips brushing over the drawing board in front of her, feeling the damp touch of semi-coagulated paint drying slowly.

”August, there are many times I really feel quite frustrated. Artistic talent is something that defies all reason.”

Anna shook her hair, her queenly cold face showing some stubborn girlish persistence.

”With such boiling emotions in my heart, I’m trapped by mediocre techniques unable to express them. Despite my earnest efforts to capture the feeling Grandma Kara once did, all I get is one lifeless work after another. A hundredfold effort doesn’t bring even a tenth of the result.”

Anna lightly bit her lip.

On the drawing board in front of her,

is another cover painting of ’The Little Prince’, an imitation in Anna’s stroke.

Not long ago,

Detective Cat’s excellent technique and depiction abilities in his works ignited a creative desire in Miss Elina that had never extinguished.

Such extremely gorgeous brushwork,

seemed to possess a mysterious magic that touched some of her worries.

Hence Anna felt inspired to imitate Detective Cat Sister’s compositions, painting an illustration of The Little Prince.

This painting would have no practical use.

It’s simply a tribute by an art enthusiast to a master, a form of self-soothing for her soul.

The reason to do so,

might be because Anna always vaguely felt a sense of regret deep in her subconscious.

August caught the scent of melancholy emanating from his owner, shook his fur, and sneezed with a loud snort-like noise.

”Do you also think I’m somewhat insatiable, right?”

Anna gazed at the big dog at her feet, gently pinching her fingers.

She believed the illustrations of ’The Little Prince’ by Detective Cat would undoubtedly become milestone works in the history of illustration in the next ten, fifteen or even fifty years.

Anna firmly believed in this conclusion.

To witness such technique even more outstanding than her original most optimistic expectations, she felt she should have no regrets left.

It was supposed to be so,

Miss Elina genuinely felt honored to personally participate in such a work’s creation.

But...

She couldn’t help but harbor a bit of unexplainable discontentment.

It wasn’t due to Detective Cat’s inadequacy, quite the contrary, because of the opponent’s exceedingly high completion, Anna felt the regret of a perfect full moon with a flaw, a perfect mirror with a speck of dust.

This was a respect towards the peak of artworks.

Anna would not care how many clumsy mistakes a rough piece contains.

She, however, would feel anguished and breathless over a tiny scratch on a perfectly sacred piece of art.

Her home tutor who taught her classical music once sighed in front of Anna.

If Debussy’s compositions had Haydn’s solemnity, and Haydn’s symphonies had Debussy’s vibrant excitement, that would be the most sacred music in the world. She would do anything just for a momentary listen to such celestial sounds.

Seeing Detective Cat’s paintings brought similar feelings in Anna’s heart.

If only Detective Cat could paint her emotions, or if she herself possessed Detective Cat’s techniques, or... even just a third of that Algerian Sister’s skills.

Imagine what kind of perfect work that would be!

From the paintings, Anna could sense that Lady Detective Cat was not deeply familiar with ’The Little Prince’, or at least not someone whose heart was truly touched by The Little Prince.

She had tried her best to assist, yet there remained a barrier.

The two seemed to be exchanging breaths through a layer of wet paper.

She could only smell a faint hint of her own exhalation.

Miss Ilina tried her utmost, she too could only infuse some very fragmentary emotions into the other through the sound of reading.

After all, human sadness and happiness aren’t mutual.

Nor does there exist in the world truly any two people whose hearts beat in perfect harmony.

Anna even felt embarrassed to share her regrets with the other.

Illustrators who can thoroughly read the background materials provided by the employer belong to the very dedicated kind.

Many magazine illustrators, when busy, only skim a few pages and keywords, determine the content of the picture, and then toss the text aside to start drawing.

No one has that spare time to study what the article’s theme and emotional core are.

If working in illustration required doing a full reading comprehension first, artists would have long flipped Tables and cursed.

Or more simply, directly feed keywords into mature AI neural network drawing software like MidJourney, StableDiffusion, or wombo.art.

Let the computer run a few programs.

Artists only need to tell the website the style you require, from painting knife painting to watercolor painting, from scribble sketch to flat style, even if you enter something like ”Cyberpunk+Dunhuang mural collage style”.

Artificial intelligence can analyze what ”Cyberpunk+Dunhuang mural” is in the database, and then try to create it for you.

You can get ten pictures in as fast as thirty seconds and slowly pick through them.

At least thirty percent of the industry, nowadays, is completed this way.

The feelings embedded in Lady Detective Cat’s paintings, within the illustration industry, are already particularly moving, one in many thousands.