As soon as Gu Weijing got home, he returned to his studio in the calligraphy and painting shop.
It is better to choose a day than to hit it,
Now that he has selected a suitable work, he wants to copy this oil painting today.
Gu Weijing quickly found the canvas, brushes, palette knife, and palette in the studio.
He also deliberately took a bottle of chemically synthesized quick-drying media from the cabinet.
Contrary to what many people think, oil paints cannot be diluted with water, and special drying oil must be used. As the dry oil gradually evaporates, it will form a dry oil film on the surface of the canvas, which plays a role in fixing the pigment.
Oils with different formulas dry at completely different speeds after contact with air.
Some are fast and some are slow,
Formulas with fast drying speed are called "lean oil" in the industry, while formulas with slow drying speed and large oil content are called "fat oil" in the industry.
The first important principle that learners learn when painting any oil painting is the principle of fat, cover and thin.
To put it bluntly, the lower the paint, the faster the formula should dry.
The higher the layer of pigment, the slower the formula should dry.
If it's the other way around, the top pigment dries and shrinks with the bottom pigment first, which will cause the top pigment to harden and the surface to crack or even fall off.
There is a fast way to paint an oil painting, and a slow way to paint an oil painting.
Generally speaking, classical painting methods often use dry painting.
Gu Weijing's oil painting of a Mercedes-Benz car model took almost a month to paint in order to wait for each layer of paint to dry completely.
However, Impressionist works usually have thicker paint and more expressive brushstrokes, which can be covered layer by layer with wet paint.
Coupled with the chemical quick-drying media developed by modern oil painting manufacturers, if the speed is fast, an oil painting can be completed in an afternoon.
Gu Weijing stretched a canvas of suitable size onto the frame and fixed it.
He chose a white canvas covered in chemical acrylic.
Like paint, if you are pursuing perfection for the white base covering the surface of the canvas, you can use lithopone, white powder and yourself to mix it.
But after all, this is the first time to copy this masterful work.
Gu Weijing knew that he could not draw very well, so there was no need to worry about these details.
Just like getting 80% or above in an exam first, then it makes sense to pursue the test score and whether the writing is good or not. If you don’t have the time to repaint the canvas, it’s better to make more copies and make greater progress.
Gu Weijing first used the non-contact scanner in the gallery to scan the entire painting into an electronic version, and then used a projector to project the electronic photo onto the canvas.
Here’s another quick copying tip.
Gu Weijing has a naturally strong sense of space, which is actually very advantageous when copying works of art. If he slowly drafted the original painting from scratch with a pencil, Gu Weijing could draw it very accurately, but it was too time-consuming.
Anyway, he will definitely copy this "Old Church on a Thunderstorm Day" many times.
The focus of the first copying is to figure out the painting process, understand the color principle of the painting and become familiar with the composition.
Gu Weijing used a projector to project the original painting as a clever way to save time.
He adjusted the projector so that the size of the picture exactly coincided with the canvas.
As soon as he started making sketches with pencil on canvas, Gu Weijing noticed the changes brought about by his improvement in sketching in the past month.
Smooth——
This is Gu Weijing's biggest feeling.
With the help of the projector, the painter can quickly create the large shapes in the oil painting theme, but the small shapes still need to be continuously adjusted during the in-depth process.
It still tests your sketching skills.
This was not done with the help of Menzel's skills. Gu Weijing was purely using his own ability to paint.
In the past, he often copied famous paintings under the guidance of the school's art teacher. His drafts were very accurate, but the copying process was very difficult.
Strictly speaking, he felt that he was more describing than painting.
But now, with first-level professional sketching skills, he finally has the feeling that his pen is following him, rather than him following the pen.
Gu Weijing pursued his own ideas and slowly used lines to restore the rough spatial relationship of the picture as clearly as possible.
At this time, the advantages of sketching on the spot of the original work gradually begin to emerge.
Gu Weijing kept stopping his brush to compare with the original drawing in front of him.
Sometimes he just glanced at the original painting briefly, sometimes Gu Weijing stared at the painting for a long time, and even occasionally he simply put down the brush and walked back and forth in the studio.
He looked straight at the church on the picture frame, walking from far to near, and then from near to far.
Having a sufficient sense of communication with the original painting itself is the state that painters long for most when copying, and it is also something that copying from electronic albums is completely impossible to do.
It's like the difference between listening to an English tape and having a conversation with an English teacher in person.
It is said that a few years ago, a painter suddenly cried while copying Adolf Menzel's realist masterpiece "The Steel Factory" which describes the life of bourgeois workers in an art museum.
Others asked him why,
The painter replied: "I felt hellish sparks splashing on me."
An oil painting is like a piece of amber that solidifies the painter's spirit. It is alive and changes in light and shadow from different angles.
People like Gu Weijing, who walks around and observes repeatedly, can only get such good treatment if they buy paintings and take them home.
As Gu Weijing writes faster and faster, dense and complex lines appear on the canvas.
After about half an hour, Gu Weijing put down his pencil.
It's just a pencil sketch, so there's no need to express light and shadow in detail, just a general shape.
"Well, there are still many imperfections, but the general shape is like this."
He turned off the projector, placed his draft next to the original painting, and studied it for a few seconds. Overall, he passed the test.
Gu Weijing's manuscript divided the picture into three parts.
The sky in the thunderstorm is the background color, the architectural structure of the church is the main body, and the two Madonna statues in front of the church are close-ups.
After the sketching work is completed, you can prepare to apply the background color.
Gu Weijing began to mix oil paints.
Soon, he frowned.
"Something's not right."
Even though he hadn't started coloring yet, Gu Weijing already felt like he had nowhere to start at this step.
He glanced at his oil painting panel - [Oil Painting: Semi-Professional lv.3 (217/1000)].
Legend has it that saints' sermons can make mortals enlightened and make lotuses grow out of mud.
Looking directly at the works that have been systematically evaluated as painting saints seems to have a similar effect.
Gu Weijing's reckless behavior in appreciating Ray Arnold's works led to him being taken directly to the hospital.
But after he woke up, he discovered that with just one glance, his oil painting skills had increased a lot out of thin air, reaching the semi-professional level of Lv. 3.
Unfortunately, even at the semi-professional level, there is still a huge gap between the level of the second-level master.
Even if the original painting is right in front of him, Gu Weijing is holding the palette, but he still cannot restore the original color feeling.
Although when he was restoring the murals before, Gu Weijing's understanding of the pigments of traditional Chinese paintings in "Mojie Notes" allowed him to draw many parallels.
But apart from the difference in color between Chinese painting and oil painting, the color palette of Impressionist oil painting is the most complicated type of oil painting.
Impressionist painters would choose appropriate colors as the base color tones. When they mixed colors, they expressed a feeling. They did not completely adjust the colors on the palette and changed them as they went.
The background color of this painting is dark brown, and Gu Weijing carefully arranged several kinds of black and purple on the palette.
He felt something was wrong. Compared with the original painting's clever color control, which was dark but not eerie, it seemed too rigid and rigid.
Continue to do it every day.
(End of chapter)
