Gu Weijing sat on the bed.
The tip of his nose was lingering with the mixed scent of sandalwood and osmanthus fragrant on the girl's body after taking a bath. He somewhat forgot the reason why he came, but it was Mona who spoke first.
"Gu Weijing, come and take a look at my new holiday homework. I'm going to put it in my portfolio and use it to apply for college this year."
Mona carefully moved her easel from the balcony.
Their oil painting teacher requires everyone to complete an oil painting assignment during the vacation, regardless of subject.
Gu Weijing's model painting of a Mercedes-Benz car was already finished when the panel was obtained. Miss Mona's oil painting is now almost complete and is being finished.
Judging from Gu Weijing's current perspective, one or two layers of paint would make it a very good work.
She painted a self-portrait.
In the oil painting, she is wearing a blue skirt with fluttering skirt corners, and behind her are the flowing Irrawaddy River and the setting sun.
Mona stood on the drawing board, pointed to the frame next to her, and asked in a playful tone: "Am I beautiful?"
Gu Weijing looked at the oil painting panel and thought for a moment.
Berryman's human anatomy can be applied not only to sketches, but also to oil paintings. Even if his experience in oil painting techniques is not very high, he can still give Mona some guidance.
"clothing."
Gu Weijing said.
"What's the meaning?"
"The figure is clothed."
"So...what if?"
Mona crossed her arms and said in an unhappy tone: "I can't draw a self-portrait without clothes during my vacation homework. Am I crazy, or are you crazy?"
"Or...are you flirting with me?"
Mona tilted her head and looked at Gu Weijing with a playful look in her eyes: "I'm going to ask Gu Lin what you did during the holidays after school starts. I haven't seen you for a month, and you learn so quickly."
"No, no, no, you misunderstood me..."
Gu Weijing realized what the other person meant, his ears turned red immediately, and he waved his hands: "I didn't mean anything else, I was just talking about the oil painting."
"Okay... I want to see what you think of my portrait painting. I'd like to remind you in advance that because I have to apply to the Academy of Fine Arts this year, my father hired a private tutor for me during the winter vacation. This painting was painted under his guidance. Yes, if you can’t explain why..."
Mona looked at Gu Weijing's fussing around and felt a little amused.
She knew that the other person was an introvert, and she wanted to tease him.
"...I want to look good."
She licked the corners of her mouth and made a vicious face.
Miss Mona doesn't look fierce, but rather playful.
"Why do I say the character's problem is the clothes?"
Gu Weijing tapped the half-finished oil painting with his fingers, and his fingertips followed the curves of Mona's figure.
The girl loves to dress up, and she obviously put a lot of thought into the blue dress in the painting.
The silver buttons, the brown-red scarf, and the flowing texture of the skirt are all very good.
"I think when drawing portraits, no matter what the subject matter is, from comics to oil paintings, gouache or prints, the core focus is always only one - the characters."
"Your clothes are very beautiful, so beautiful that they take the spotlight."
"When painting portraits of clothed figures, especially when they are not portraits of special figures such as kings and generals, the most important point is that clothes are only a covering for the body. Therefore, all its folds are caused by the body inside it. Determined by the muscle curves.”
Gu Weijing recalled the anatomy experience he had gained in his mind and explained it very patiently.
"When you carefully observe and draw clothes, you need to show the structure of the body inside it. Especially when drawing a girl wearing a skirt, you need to show the character's torso and limbs as much as possible."
"Do you remember the oil painting My Daughter Georgia?"
Gu Weijing gave an example of how they studied with a professor in an oil painting appreciation class.
"My Daughter Georgia" is a classic portrait created by the painter Naomi Alexander for her daughter, which is now collected in the Ludwig Museum in Germany.
In class, the teacher once focused on the brushes and techniques used in this painting.
At that time, Gu Weijing couldn't understand many of them.
Now that he had acquired Berryman's anatomical skills and the portraits in the oil painting in his memory, many things made sense at once.
"What happened to the painting 'My Daughter Georgia'?"
Mona asked.
"In that painting, the clothes are treated into a simple and relatively elongated form, leading the viewer's eyes upward to the figure's face."
"Before this, the painter had already shown enough muscle lines and rich expressions on the face to attract the audience's attention."
Gu Weijing used his fingers to simply express the wrinkles in the painting on the bed sheet.
"The outline and folds of the blue skirt in the picture play the biggest role in making the audience feel that it is very comfortable. At the same time, it also outlines the outline of the character's waist, hips and knees."
"Remember what the teacher said? In order to pursue the smooth touch of the clothes and reduce the audience's distraction in places other than the lines of the human figure, the painting itself was even painted on a wooden board instead of a common canvas."
At that time, Gu Weijing also had doubts about the substrate chosen by Naomi Alexander. Compared with ordinary canvases, wooden boards are neither convenient to transport nor store, and the adhesion of oil paints is not good either.
Now that I think about it, it’s all about highlighting the characters.
"Not only are the colors of the clothes in the self-portrait you painted too bright. There are also too many decorations. The various skirt laces and buttons make the clothes seem to have a life of their own when painted with the brush. This is not a good thing——"
Gu Weijing's fingers pointed at the girl's limbs and head and neck in the oil painting frame.
"You see, this will cause the head, hands, and feet that are not covered by clothes to be naturally connected to the body, like a doll made of building blocks."
He concluded looking at Mona one last time.
"It sounds pretty much like that."
Mona sniffed.
She smiled and said, "If my tutor hadn't checked the line drawing and thought there was nothing wrong with the painting, I would have been blinded by you."
As the main work in her portfolio, before Mona painted this oil painting, her father hired a senior as a private tutor for her to give her guidance on line drawing.
The other party is a student from the Royal College of Art in England. To be admitted to the Royal College of Art, a long-established art academy ranked among the top 30 in the world, his painting skills must be excellent.
Since the seniors thought there was nothing wrong with the painting, Mona didn't take Gu Weijing's words to heart.
She wasn't that serious to begin with, she was just teasing Gu Weijing.
"That senior of yours..."
Gu Weijing opened his mouth and wanted to say something else.
"Okay, okay, seeing as how much you have done, I will consider you to have passed the test. You are only seventeen years old, so even if you say something wrong, I won't laugh at you."
"Teach you to be good. When a girl asks you if your portrait looks good in the future, they are not asking for your opinion, they are just asking for your praise."
Mona waved her hand and moved the easel back to the balcony.
"You haven't told me yet, why did you come to me this time?"
