The Versatile Master Artist

Koizumi Katsuko saw Gu Weijing start painting, and she stopped talking to avoid disturbing him.

She held a cup of lemon water, tilted her head, and watched quietly.

Miss Shengzi had a straw in her mouth, and since the moment the work on the sketch paper started to gradually take shape, she hadn’t really been drinking for quite some time.

Koizumi Katsuko’s teeth unconsciously nibbled on the paper straw’s tube wall, as the liquid surface gently rose and fell with her breathing.

The afternoon sunlight outside the window was just right, with the mahogany floor flowing in an amber gloss.

A little girl held a cat and played contentedly on the floor, with only the sound of the pencil tip rubbing on rough paper and the occasional impatient ”Miaomiao” from the tabby cat audible.

Miss Shengzi felt a peaceful and serene atmosphere around her, tinged with a golden haze, like a watercolor landscape painting from the Hudson River School.

Time seemed to slow down at this moment, as if this peaceful and beautiful scene could be eternally preserved in this third-world country constantly plagued by war and turmoil.

The boy’s pen drawing beside her also seemed somewhat unreal.

”This doesn’t look like something a young person could create.”

Katsuko thought.

This kind of praise was often inserted by the media onto her own reputation.

But compared to Gu Weijing’s work in front of her, she felt he was more deserving of such compliments. Watching Gu Weijing paint, Koizumi Katsuko felt like watching leaves fall in an ancient temple, a young monk reciting sutras.

It doesn’t seem outdated due to its conventionality, while youth exudes a Zen quality inconsistent with his age.

In front of Koizumi Katsuko’s eyes, Gu Weijing was using a densely intertwined fishnet-like shadow pattern to weave a spot on the cat’s forehead.

In the ink and wash, a brush force and spirit belonging to him were beginning to form.

Probably within a few years, he will form a unique brushwork style.

Like the first water stain emerging on the horizon during a high tide.

At some point,

it will transform into a wave hitting the shore.

Shengzi began to be slightly lost in thought.

She imagined.

Years later, in the evening, they walked hand in hand through a certain magnificent and grand art gallery.

It was a very majestic exhibition hall, with camera flashes flickering, surrounded by his paintings and hers.

Flowing multimedia screens hung on the gallery’s columns, displaying ”Congratulations to Gu Weijing & Koizumi Katsuko, artist couple, on hosting a themed art exhibition at a certain art gallery and so on.”

Certain gallery?

Her mind wandered as she wondered whether that gallery should be the Vatican, Metropolis, or the Louvre.

It didn’t matter.

It wasn’t important at all.

What mattered was that Gu Weijing was turning his head, saying something to her, which she couldn’t hear clearly. She just felt their eyes meet, imagining her face slightly flushed.

Koizumi Katsuko’s face was also slightly flushed now.

She didn’t shy away from letting this girlish reverie slip away from her mind, but rather inexplicably let her body follow her heart’s throbbing, wanting to draw something.

Koizumi Katsuko didn’t even want to take the time to get up and look for other art supplies; she casually picked up the nearby iPad.

She opened the Procreate drawing app, adjusted the brush settings, and instinctively started drawing on the digital screen.

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”I feel like I seem a bit old, huh? But... next time your brother says that anyone who draws on an iPad isn’t a real artist, you can show him this drawing, then hit him squarely on the head.”

Gu Weijing put down his drawing board.

He glanced at the iPad screen in Koizumi Katsuko’s hand and raised his eyebrows.

”Shengzi.”

”Hmm?”

Koizumi Katsuko also focused on the drawing board before her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, uttering a faint nasal sound.

”You truly are a genius, from the heart, a compliment. I previously thought you needed several more weeks to fully grasp the feeling, yet you’ve achieved it now.”

Gu Weijing spoke softly.

[Title: Untitled Work]

[Crayon Technique: Ordinary]

[Emotion: Heartfelt]

In order to capture that moment’s feeling in her heart, Koizumi Katsuko casually used the simplest and fastest crayon brush in Procreate.

She merely depicted a man’s profile, with facial features loosely sketched in a few strokes.

Unlike oil pastels, crayons have a weaker color overlay capability, making the drawings less realistic.

Gu Weijing could see his shadow in the profile.

For some reason, there seemed to be faint wrinkles on the forehead, which estimated he should be around thirty years old, most notably in the profile’s gaze.

Eyes are the windows to the soul.

Koizumi Katsuko expended most of her energy on the profile’s eyes, seemingly capturing flying colored light reflecting within them.

Asking himself,

Gu Weijing believed it was hard for him to produce an expression filled with such feminine charm.

In reality, how complex must the external lighting conditions be to reflect such varied hues in a person’s eyes?

Yet Picasso painted his wife with three legs, which doesn’t prevent it from being an extremely moving painting.

From the first glance at the painting on the iPad screen.

Gu Weijing immediately understood—Koizumi Katsuko had successfully fused her emotion with her brushwork, creating a painting that allowed the audience to empathize.

Using Calligraphy and Painting Identification Skill to take a look.

Sure enough, he saw the evaluation [Heartfelt].

”Ah.”

It was then that Koizumi Katsuko completely withdrew from her daydream.

She looked at the artwork she just created on the drawing tablet, gazing at it for a few seconds, and let out a soft, surprised cry.

The artistic dilemma that had been troubling her for years, her father’s criticism of painting ”having form without soul, tough to become a master,” a barrier she had worked hard in the studio for many years but couldn’t overcome.