The fourth cycle of "The Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss Jr. was playing in the speaker next to the sofa. I don't know when it started raining outside the window, and the raindrops fell on the marble steps in front of Gu's calligraphy and painting shop. , making a rustling sound.
Gu Weijing stared blankly at the drawing in his hand, as if he didn't realize it.
If you are a long-distance runner, you must have this experience.
At a certain moment while running, fatigue suddenly disappears, dopamine is secreted rapidly, your breathing and heartbeat speed up, the world becomes quiet, and a steady stream of power surges into your body from the ground.
You are obviously exhausted, but you are also ecstatic, as if an angel has given you wings.
In kinesiology, this situation is called an exhaustive cycle. RB cartoonists who love middle school love to call it the "god's realm" and "zero" state once in a lifetime in the passionate sports cartoon "Shounen Jump". etc.
This is how Gu Weijing felt.
In the past thirty minutes, he almost never stopped writing. The wood chips scraped off by the pencil sharpener had piled up in a small puddle, and many were scattered randomly on the wooden floor. His fingers and wrists were all wet. It becomes sore and numb due to continuous high-intensity work.
Gu Weijing ignored it.
The moment the pencil fell on the watercolor paper and drew the first line segment, he felt what professionalism meant.
Not long ago, I completed an oil painting also based on a classic Mercedes-Benz car model.
If what he painted originally was "copying", then what he paints now is "precision".
If his original talent allowed him to draw "images", then his professional-level skills now allow him to draw "reality".
This gap was both despairing and ecstatic.
Parallel lining method, overlapping color method, flat painting... Occasionally, he will use a spray bottle on one side to spray a little water mist on the water-soluble pencil coloring on the drawing paper to neutralize the color halo. Various techniques are like this in his mind. Conditioned reflexes generally appear alternately. You can pick them up at your fingertips without thinking. Various light and dark changes of light and shadow have already appeared on the watercolor paper.
Every line segment and handwriting seems to have been measured with an industrial laser printer. The straight lines drawn by hand have almost no millimeter-level error.
The unique graininess of colored pencils is like old-fashioned film filled with time, vividly showing every aspect of this car model, even the unique moist feeling of resin is brought into full play.
The skill ended quietly when Gu Weijing put down the last stroke, and now he is just savoring the aftertaste.
[Sketch lv.3 Semi-Professional (351/1000)] On the panel in front of me, my sketching experience has increased by more than a hundred points, and several other skills have also improved from a dozen to dozens of points.
Just half an hour with the basic blessing of the master's painting is almost equivalent to his hard work in the past year.
Gu Weijing raised his head, put down the painting, and smiled silently.
If I had to find an example to describe his current mood.
That was probably the shock that Guo Jing, who had been practicing the Seven Swords of the Yue Women in the second-rate martial arts for more than ten years in the desert of Mongolia, was shocked when he saw the great master Hong Qigong perform the Eighteen Palms of Subduing the Dragon for the first time after coming to the Central Plains.
It turns out that the world is so vast.
…
"Not bad."
Mr. Gu stood on the window outside the door, looking at the scene in the gallery, and nodded secretly.
The old man’s real name is Gu Tongxiang. He was born in the 1940s. He has been using paintbrushes all his life and is somewhat famous in Myanmar.
He has two sons, but the eldest son has limited talent, and Gu Weijing’s father has not inherited any artistic talents. He studied finance in college and now works in a small but long-established private bank in France.
The most promising person in the family to take over the profession of painter is the talented grandson Gu Weijing.
Shortly after the Spring Festival, he was visiting an old client. After receiving a text message from his grandson informing him that a gangster was coming to his door, he was worried and immediately drove back.
He returned to Gu's calligraphy and painting shop more than ten minutes ago. He saw that the door was closed with a sign saying it was temporarily closed, and no one answered his cell phone calls. Worried that something had happened at home, he leaned on the window of the book gallery and looked in. I saw Gu Weijing holding a colored pencil.
Gu Tongxiang felt a little relieved when he saw Gu Weijing concentrating on painting inside.
"There is stillness."
The old man has been floating in the art market for half his life. He has seen all kinds of swindlers who pretend to be artists and steal their reputation. He has also seen countless young people with extraordinary talents live in poverty for half their lives, with no one paying attention. In the end, he regretfully said goodbye to this industry. Find a way out.
The painter industry is very cruel.
They have to fight for talent, hard work, skills, background, teachers, schools, and resources... You may become famous overnight because of the appreciation of noble people, or you may be the reincarnation of Van Gogh, but you will be in a miserable state.
After all, even if it was Van Gogh, the world only thought he was a madman, right?
Look at those people whose daily job is to travel on a private jet or vacation on a million-dollar private island in the Pacific called "Cai Feng." Artists who only paint one painting in half a year, and each painting costs tens of millions of dollars at Christie's Autumn auction, are enjoying great success and freedom.
But how many such people are there?
Under their feet were thousands of bones that had fallen on this road called the dream. Those 90% of low-level painters may not even be able to afford a better canvas. They are the true portrayal of this profession.
Many young people who have studied art and painting for many years only see the benefits of this industry and cannot bear the hardships of this industry. In the end, they changed careers when they were in college, including cover drawing for fashion magazines, fashion design, art color grading in the later stages of film and television, and even studying civil engineering...
Although these are all very good, after all, they are still drifting away from the profession of painter.
Gu Tongxiang has been in the industry for so many years, not because he loves his grandson's house, but because there are really few young people under the age of 18 who have just been lured by the underworld to make money. The calmness.
Having a better impression of young people who work hard is something that almost all older painters have in common.
"Huh? Are you drawing models again?"
Mr. Gu Tongxiang frowned again. He knew that his grandson had a good grasp of spatial structures. He usually liked to draw mechanical models when submitting homework or creating in his spare time.
Through the glass, the old man couldn't see clearly what Gu Weijing was painting now, but he could clearly see the antique car model on the coffee table and the oil painting job being dried naturally in the corner.
"I have told him so many times that without studying painting skills and improving the stability of brushstrokes day after day, there is no future by relying solely on talent."
The old man felt a little angry.
To be honest, he has always felt that his grandson's talent for space reproduction may not be a good thing for a painter.
Not to mention Brother Hao and others who came to visit.
Painting itself also pays attention to genre.
Whether you want to admit it or not, painting is outclassed by modern photography in terms of its ability to record reality.
Drawing too much likeness is sometimes a shortcoming. It is not as realistic as photography, and it lacks the agility of a painter. It completely combines the shortcomings of two art forms.
If you can draw a good photo and paint a statue of God in a medieval church, you might be able to treat it as a miracle and be canonized or something like that, but in the modern art market, there is only one way out.
Those top galleries and oil painting dealers are looking for the next Manet, the next Cézanne, and the next Picasso, not the second Picasso.
They will spend crazy money on promising young people, but they will not spend a penny on poor imitators.
Although Gu Weijing has an outstanding talent for grasping space, his basic painting skills can only be regarded as good among his peers.
For young painters, only solid basic skills are the foundation for establishing a school in the future.
With only one practice, there is no room for opportunism.
"We should have a good talk with him. At his age, it's time to practice basic skills in a down-to-earth manner. He should learn lines, structures, and colors honestly. He can't just waste time on his talent."
When the old man saw that Gu Weijing had finally put down his painting brush, he knocked heavily on the window.
…
Gu Weijing heard the sound of knocking on the window behind him. He turned around and saw his grandfather's unhappy face. Only then did he realize that there were several missed calls on his cell phone.
He opens the door.
"Drawing, colored pencil drawings?"
When Gu Tongxiang walked into the calligraphy and painting shop, he didn't mention a word about the bald guy coming to the door, but asked straight to the point.
"Yes, it feels better..."
Gu Weijing was about to say something when he was interrupted by his grandfather.
"This is a good thing. Colored pencil drawings are works that can test a person's proficiency in brushstrokes. However, you should try your best to focus on the basic skills of drawing itself and work harder. It is not enough to just draw like. Look at these of yours line……"
Gu Tongxiang picked up the painting on the table.
For an old painter like him, it is not difficult to find faults in a painting, especially the works of young painters like Gu Weijing who have not yet attended a serious art academy.
There are thousands of handwritings in a painting, and there are always times when you are careless. Maybe the line segments are not processed cleanly, maybe the color is too thick, or maybe the light and shade are not clear.
Even if it is an experienced old painter, it is impossible for the work that took such a short time to be perfect and without errors.
He lowered his head and glanced at the painting, ready to pick out some imperfections.
Then comes the second look.
But it’s the third sight.
Mr. Gu suddenly stopped talking.
