"What do you think I will teach you in this class...how to show your personal creativity in your portfolio? Composition inspiration, layout design?"
In class, Professor Wattel used chalk to write the word PORTFLIO (portfolio) on the blackboard.
"No, this is all nonsense!"
The old gentleman turned around, faced the faces of many students in the art classroom, lit the podium with chalk and said.
"Are these things important?"
"Of course it is important, but this is what you should have learned in the past thirteen years at Dulwich College. Now you only have the last few months of high school. If you expect to go to advanced classes, it will be like the Philosopher's Stone. It can turn stubborn iron into gold. Sorry, I don't have this ability, and it's not realistic."
Wattel stretched out a finger and said coldly: "The only thing I can teach you is... details."
In addition to independent professional courses such as oil painting, sketching, and still life painting, Dulwich International High School will only offer theme courses in two grades specifically to hone painting skills and improve painting details.
Or the teaching object is a preschool class with a group of five-year-old children.
Teachers will hold the hands of first-grade students and draw various curves and folds on paper, similar to the process Comrade Leonardo da Vinci practiced drawing eggs when he was a child.
Or a thirteenth-year student.
They have received a complete set of art education, and teachers have taught everything they should. What is left is to continuously polish the details of the portfolio.
"Don't think this is easy. Most of you have gone to school for so many years. The details of painting and the ability to use pens are still terrible. When the admissions teacher of the university sees the portfolio of many people for the first time, within three seconds , the poor details of the pen have already sentenced it to death." Professor Wattel shook his head.
Many people in the classroom looked disapproving.
Gu Weijing listened very carefully.
The radical improvement brought about by his painting skills made him increasingly aware of the importance of his ability to use a pen.
details make a difference,
A single sketched line segment may not be noticeable on paper between a person with good drawing skills and a person with poor drawing skills.
But in a painting, hundreds of line segments are stacked together, and tens of thousands of tiny, unobtrusive gaps will make a huge difference in expressiveness.
The reason why his knife paintings are legendary is that the details are almost flawless.
If Gu Weijing's other painting techniques also possess legendary abilities, even if he "only" has Menzel's basic painting experience and brush-using ability.
There is no need for Mr. Cao’s guidance, nor is there any need to study the painting techniques of ancient or modern fusion painting ancestors.
Gu Weijing may be able to easily eliminate the sense of fragmentation in his fusion paintings simply by relying on his control over details. He can use his strong control to forcibly combine different painting styles seamlessly.
Just like two pieces of plasticine, his current painting skills are only enough to pinch the surface of the plasticine together like a baby's hands, and it will break with a slight touch.
Therefore, Gu Weijing needed to practice the specialized painting method of line drawing and sketching, and try rubbing and twisting at various angles to make the two pieces of plasticine mesh more tightly.
If so, his ability to control details is strong enough, and the baby becomes a strong man or even a hydraulic press, and he can pinch these paintings together at will.
The same goes for applying to college.
Many students will work hard on the creativity of their portfolios. For example, Mona's father hired a family professor or even hired a specialized study abroad agency to design his portfolio.
It cannot be said that it has no effect.
However, even for second-tier European art schools like the University of Rotterdam, the admissions office receives tens of thousands of dazzling portfolios from applicants from all over the world every year.
Everyone wants to draw something new.
Admissions teachers have long been tired of seeing all kinds of pretense of novelty.
The better the art academy, the more difficult it is to succeed solely by relying on novel and creative designs.
Finally, we have to return to the painting technique itself.
Yangon does not have the Eastern Xia Art Examination, the Japanese Art Examination or the American Art and Design Examination (Art and Design Examination), which are unified examinations that test students' painting skills.
Therefore, during the admissions process, university teachers review the portfolios submitted by Dulwich students and pay special attention to the students' drawing skills and line details to judge their true painting skills.
"Don't blame me for not reminding you. Every year, parents spend thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars to hire overseas study agencies to design portfolio ideas and compositions for their children. As a result, they don't even get an admission offer because of a bad painting. Case."
“What are the great details that catch people’s attention… Let me give you an example that all of you young people should have heard of.”
Professor Vatel pressed the electronic pointer in his hand, and a drawing was projected on the curtain on one side.
"This is……"
"The illustration in the video of Mr. Hyperion, the internet celebrity."
"Call it Detective Cat, right?"
There were comments from students in the classroom, and they were all impressed by the video that had been very popular on YouTube during the holidays.
Gu Weijing sat up slightly.
What appeared on the projection screen was his own Batman illustration for Thomas.
"Hey, have you watched the video of [Mr. Hyperion]? The judge sister is awesome." Someone bumped Gu Weijing's shoulder.
Kou Kou still looks cool.
Her seat was pushed far away from the desk, and the back of the chair was tilted back to lean against the back wall of the classroom. Her body was tilted back, and her long, straight legs that had been practiced in dance were proudly displayed under the short skirt of her school uniform.
The ankles wrapped in white stockings were put together, attracting many boys to look at her secretly.
Especially those Jerry boys.
In addition to the smooth thighs of the campus cheerleader, they also focused on Gu Weijing beside her.
They couldn't figure it out ever since Coco pulled up the chair next to Gu Weijing and sat there before class started.
The bumpkin on this campus.
My family is poor and I am not very handsome.
In the eyes of his classmates, Gu Weijing's only advantage was that he studied well.
As a result, I didn’t even enter Mrs. Sakai’s gifted class this time, so I could only attend the big class with them.
Logically speaking, such a person is a transparent person who can be stepped on by anyone.
Why do you always attract the attention of pretty girls in school?
"It's quite beautiful, very impressive." Gu Weijing nodded in agreement.
"Haha, you boys are all like this." Kou Kou showed a sneer as if she had successfully enforced the law. "I am a serious art video artist. A big sister who lives in Africa and makes a living by selling illustrations online for ten dollars, relies on her own treatment of art. With her pious heart, she defeated a famous illustrator whose worth is thousands of times higher than hers to win the championship.”
"It's such a touching story, but it turns out that your most impressive focus is the beautiful judges."
The tip of Kou Ke's nose twitched and turned up, and she commented with a disdainful tone: "Vulgar."
Gu Weijing's face twitched and he was speechless.
As expected, he couldn't guess what Kou Kou was thinking about next to him.
"Silence, my class is not for you to discuss YouTube celebrities."
The sketching professor suppressed the increasingly divergent discussion in the art classroom with an irritable knock on the table: "What can you think of when you see this illustration?"
"The details are beautiful, and the muscle lines are drawn very accurately." A classmate said.
"Yes, very beautiful? This is not very beautiful, this is because he [beep-] is too beautiful."
Professor Vatel looked at the enlarged version of the photo taken from the video on the projector, and rarely used a swear word starting with F that was not in line with teacher regulations in class.
"Let's look at the intersection of the two lines here. This is a photo magnified more than ten times under the high-definition camera in the video. Look here..."
The old gentleman used an electronic pen to draw a circle on the screen and then enlarged that location.
Then he turned on the slide projector on the other side and placed a piece of plastic-sealed sketch paper on the projector's viewfinder.
"The upper right corner of the screen is the work of Miu Aung Win, who got an A+ in the Dulwich sketch class last year. Among Dulwich students, he is already one of the most talented sketchers. Let's compare it as well. Note that the slideshow The magnification of the film projector is currently only half that of this photo."
Many students gasped.
At this time, they could clearly capture the gap in the "details" mentioned by the professor.
Even at such a high magnification, the pencil line details of Detective Cat’s Batman illustration are still very clean.
Each converging contour curve ends just right at the intersection point, without any burrs or deformation.
As for the outstanding works of Dulwich students, even if the magnification is only half of the former, the difference in detail after enlargement is already obvious.
When the strokes of another sketch are enlarged, they look like a messy ball of wool split by a kitchen knife. The lines of various pencils that have not been processed well are messy and dirty.
The difference is clear at a glance.
"Regardless of what rumors you may have seen online, I think Detective Cat deserves to win this challenge."
Vatel stared at the photos on the projector: "In any of your portfolios, the detailed processing of sketches using pens can reach one-third of the former level. Even if the creativity of the portfolio is a piece of shit, as long as the teacher in the admissions office My brain is not broken, and I will definitely not lack the opportunity to go to a prestigious school. I am responsible for this conclusion."
When the old man first saw this video in the popular recommendation column of YouTube, he was simply shocked.
This level is not inferior to the works of famous artists in some art galleries.
You also need to be a famous sketcher. Some great painters who are not good at lines may not have this level of sketching.
After all, he was a professional art professor who taught sketching, but he was instantly killed by an online painter and disappeared to nowhere.
Professor Wattel was a little skeptical about life.
He also understood very well the judge Miss Elena's criticism of this painting.
Such a good work was poorly preserved.
Even though Wattel was the judge, he couldn't accept it.
"Teacher, how should we exercise and test our ability to grasp the details of using pens?" Koko stared at the illustrations on the projector with interest and asked, "Is there any secret recipe?"
"That's a good question. I can't tell you the secret recipe, but there are still ways to strengthen training and test your ability to line up."
"This classmate, come up here."
Professor Wattel randomly selected a boy sitting in the front row of the classroom and walked to the podium and placed a piece of sketch paper under the projector.
This sketch paper is different from ordinary sketch paper. It has a row of small grids of moderate size neatly arranged on it.
"You come and adjust the tone within the spaces that have been drawn. Use parallel short straight lines to arrange the lines. It is required that one stroke reaches the end. There cannot be any blank space or any burrs in the line segments beyond the scope of the grid."
Professor Wattel ordered: "You have 5 minutes."
The boy took the sketch pencil from the old gentleman's hand and didn't think there was anything too difficult.
Toning can also be simply understood as coloring with a pencil.
We are all professional art students, and we have used pencils of various hardnesses, totaling not one thousand but eight hundred.
The coloring of this small square without any shadow changes is really not a difficult requirement.
He thought there was plenty of time.
However,
After the boy painted the first stroke on the square under the projection, he knew that he was too young.
The dimensions of the squares were obviously carefully designed.
It's not too big, but it's slightly beyond the range of motion of the upper-grip pen holding method with the palm rest on the table and the wrist as the center of rotation.
He has to lift his wrist off the paper to gain greater flexibility, which reduces the stability of the pen.
At the same time, the border of graph paper is extremely thin, only about one millimeter thick.
When adjusting the tone of daily sketching, whether it is thick coating or flat coating, we are mostly pursuing an overall picture feeling.
There are no special requirements for the accuracy of the cables. In rough places, each cable can be one centimeter longer or half a centimeter shorter.
Coloring small squares is not difficult at first.
But it is very difficult to make sure that there is no blank space or any part beyond the boundary.
The boy's first stroke went beyond the border.
The second stroke stopped some distance away from the border of the square.
The relaxed look on his face disappeared immediately, and he frowned.
Unfortunately, proficiency with the pen does not change by human will.
Because he was too nervous and did not control his strength well, the boy's line broke halfway through his third stroke.
He raised his head and glanced at Teacher Vatel in embarrassment.
"It's okay, you continue."
Teacher Watter waved his hand, as if he had expected the student's embarrassment.
"This is a little tradition in my improvement class. Every year I invite a random classmate to come on stage to give a demonstration. After teaching at Dulwich College for so many years, there are only four students in total who can complete it within the five-minute allotted time. These four people Among them, the worst one was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts, which was ranked 97th in the world at that time. As for what can be completed in under four minutes..."
Teacher Wattle glanced at the students in the class and curled his lips.
"So far, none."
(End of chapter)
