[Thank you for the big reward of 100,000 yuan! 】
“This project focuses on cultivating the next generation of master artists who will lead international art and fashion trends. It will provide comprehensive guidance courses with the best professors in the world. There will be positions in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Vatican, the Florence Museum of Art... the world’s top art museums. It is open to students who have obtained the project diploma." Gu Weijing thought for a while and said.
"It sounds quite cool. It is said that the positions in these top art museums will not be fired even if you fish and swim all day long. They are all very difficult to apply for."
Koko seemed to be fascinated. She used her fingers to tuck a lock of hair that was playfully exposed from the side of her ear back into her helmet, and asked, "What is the precise name of the project you just mentioned?"
"It sounds ridiculous because what I just read was the admissions slogan on the school's official website, but it is indeed quite impressive."
Some positions in foreign art museums are just like tenured professors in top universities, with high and decent salaries, and they will almost never be fired.
As long as you don't make any principled mistakes and just show off shamelessly, you can be a salary thief in peace and comfort.
It is one of the best places for ordinary art students.
Gu Weijing shrugged and said: "It should be called [Menzel Turner - Master of Excellence Training Programme]. If you are interested, you can go to the English homepage of the school's official website and have a look. There is a detailed introduction on it."
He wanted to say something else, but suddenly his phone vibrated.
Gu Weijing took out the message bar of his mobile phone and found that it was a message just sent by his agent, Mr. Sloth.
Click in,
There are a total of two new pieces of content on the social software page.
One was forwarded to him by Mr. Sloth. It was a letter about the publishing company’s marketing department that would adjust the contract and give the illustration art studio Weirlein Studio and Detective Cat Ms. a decision letter to compete for the “Little Prince” project.
The other one was a new tweet posted 3 minutes ago by the official account of Wehrlein Studio that Mr. Sloth forwarded from Twitter.
The official blue V note name of the Twitter account is - [Winner of the Scholastic Group Master Award for Outstanding Contribution to Writing and Art, Illustration Artist Mr. Wehrlein]
Wehrlein's agent posted a new message under his account.
The background of the tweet is a live photo of the Scholastic Group Europe Building taken from the bottom up with a mobile phone. The accompanying tweet is the famous saying of Julius Caesar "VENI VIDI VICI" (I come, I see, I conquer).
The official promotions of illustration studios are not like the official promotions of European and American Hollywood stars, which easily receive millions or tens of millions of views. However, the stickiness of fans is not low. There are often people who like to collect new illustration pictures shared by the studio from time to time. Readers, stay tuned below the tweets every day.
They are all loyal fans of the studio and are quite well-informed.
Within three minutes, fans have already left comments below speculating on the purpose of Wehrlein's visit to Scholastic Group.
"Master Painter, are you here this time for the group's "Little Prince" project? I have heard rumors before that you will write the group's new version of "The Little Prince", and I look forward to it. (By the way, your set of "Greenery" Will the illustrated commemorative collection of "Wildness" be reprinted? It's so hard to buy. One thousand sets on Amazon were sold out in half an hour.)"
"Green Wilderness" is a collection of drawings compiled and published by Scholastic Group for outstanding illustration artists like Wehrlein, who have compiled and published the illustrations he has drawn over the years. The market response has been very good.
Wehrlein's account just replied to this message.
"It is originally a limited edition. If you can't buy it on Amazon, you can try your luck at a physical bookstore. As for the purpose of my coming to the publishing house this time, it is restricted by the confidentiality clause, so it is not convenient to say here. But you can guess it yourself. It’s none of the studio’s business.”
Then the official tweet gave this fan message a like.
…
Scholastic Group, European headquarters building.
Illustrator Wehrlein stood in the VIP elevator, silently watching the floor beats on the elevator's digital display.
Wehrlein's appearance is very similar to the image of a high-end art worker in the stereotype of Europeans and Americans.
Not tall, but extremely thin.
He is as thin as someone who has long been committed to animal protection and vegetarianism, with a bit of a skeleton, and the bones can be seen under the skin.
He wears the same clothes all year round, spring, autumn, cold and heat.
A suit without any brand logo, a handmade custom-made suit by a Savile Row tailor, a pair of shiny men's leather shoes from Prada, a pair of round thin-framed gold-rimmed glasses on his face, and a pair of gold glasses in his chest pocket. A Montblanc 18K rose gold writer series fountain pen that can be used for both painting and writing.
Paired with that, he has a soft, feminine voice and a slightly nervous smile when he speaks.
When walking on the street, people who don't know Wehrlein will think that if this person is not an artist, he must be the kind of gentle and perverted murderer that Japanese detective Shoji Shimada likes to depict in his works.
However,
Wehrlein is actually a very mature person, not as dissolute and glitzy as is common among European and American artists.
This is not only reflected in the fact that he is not yet fifty years old, but he likes to let the barber dye his hair gray and white, so that at first glance he looks like an old man in his sixties.
It is also reflected in the fact that even if it is just a marketing department survey that Director Charlie of the Art Department thinks is a sure thing, Wehrlein is willing to fly to the publishing house headquarters in a serious and serious manner and make a special trip to the site.
"Ms. Detective Cat? Why did you choose to paint such an unpopular knife-and-pen oil painting?"
Wehrlein waited for the elevator to rise quickly, feeling silently puzzled.
When he learned that his contract had been snatched away by Detective Cat, Wehrlein did not act as furious as Charlie on the other end of the phone.
Instead, he immediately asked his assistant to find Detective Cat’s previous works.
Wehrlein is not on YouTube, and he doesn’t know Mr. Hyperion, the world’s number one internet celebrity.
He is an "old-school" person who believes that modern electronic products will damage artistic inspiration. People who hold this view are not uncommon in high-end art circles in Europe and the United States.
He rarely uses Internet products and even now still uses an old Nokia N91 button phone.
Official promotions and emails are also handled by personal assistants and agents.
When Wehrlein saw the photo of Batman's sketch printed by his assistant, he was immediately stunned by the exquisite brushstrokes above.
"This painting is really beautiful. The positioning of the brush is extremely accurate and the hand is really steady."
This was the first thought that came to his mind.
"I...I probably can't do this."
This was the second thought that came to his mind.
Wehrlein still insists on using traditional pen and paper to draw, rather than the more convenient Wacom or electronic hand-drawing tablets such as IPad that have become mainstream in the industry.
These days, among the high-end painters who still dare to draw illustrations using paper and pen that cannot be modified, there are almost no weak sketch lines.
Wehrlein is by no means weak in sketching skills.
On the contrary,
Although he prefers to use watercolor painting, his basic drawing skills are among the strongest in the circle.
Even when he was a student at the Art Institute, almost all the sketch competition awards in the school were won by Wehrlein.
Precisely because he is a master.
Only then did he realize how terrifying it was to draw to such a level that he could open a special sketch exhibition.
Not to mention that Wehrlein himself couldn't achieve it, in the entire circle, he was very doubtful whether any living great artist of this level could come up with a slap.
"Do I really want to offend such a person?" Wehrlein even hesitated in his heart.
Of course he was very unhappy about being robbed of a large contract, but looking at this sketch illustration, Wehrlein actually had the idea of retreating.
The skill of writing does not explain everything, and formal illustrations of serious subjects are definitely rarely drawn with colored pencils alone.
But so what?
Sketching is the basis of almost all Western painting methods, not to mention water-soluble colored pencil drawings and watercolors, which are close relatives.
For a person who is good at sketching, there is usually no difference between oil painting and gouache.
Sketch lines are equivalent to a fighter's "internal strength" and "muscles".
Even if you give a sketch master a piece of chalk, he can still draw flowers on the blackboard.
certainly,
On the other hand, the expressiveness of illustrations is not entirely determined by drawing skills.
Wehrlein believes that he has been working in the illustration industry for half his life, and the ability to read original works and create art he has accumulated is by no means comparable to that of a small online illustrator.
If you really conduct market research, you will most likely win.
But, what if?
If you really lose to Detective Cat, this will be too damn fun.
The money in the contract is still a small matter, and there are few secrets in the circle. Mainly, he can't afford to lose face.
No one else cares how well Detective Cat draws.
People would only say that the dignified winner of the Master Award for Outstanding Contribution to Writing and Art, Wehrlein, could not even compete with a new online illustrator.
It’s so ugly!
He is already a successful artist.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars are not worth the risk of Wehrlein risking his own face on the ground and letting others step on him to get to the sky in order to compete for this contract.
If he really loses, aside from other things, Wehrlein feels that there is a stain on his resume that he was defeated by the Internet painter Detective Cat.
He couldn't even think about the two highest honors, the [Master Award for Outstanding Contribution to Writing and Art] and the [Andersen Award].
Wen Wu is the first, Wu Wu is the second, it is a serious oil painting situation.
When it comes to illustrations, don’t make any excuses to hide your shame. If readers don’t like it, you lose.
With Van Dorn's position, he wanted to kill the detective cat and made such a big joke. He was completely embarrassed. Wehrlein didn't think that his connections were stronger than Van Dorn's.
"You know, Detective Cat uses the drawing method of drawing with a knife." Director Charlie successfully dispelled Wehrlein's concerns with just one sentence.
Sketching is the basis of almost all Western painting methods, and it is the artist's muscle and inner strength.
This one is almost perfect, but it doesn’t include knife-pen oil painting.
"You don't need to have a basic knowledge of sketching to learn it." This slogan is the main reason why there are so many scammers in the knife painting industry.
Wehrlein speculated that Ms. Detective Cat was most likely a typical example of someone who was deceived by swindlers in Africa, far away from modern art.
She chose the most wrong way of painting.
This is similar to the fact that you have gained a big body and a round waist in the gym, and your shoulder muscles are thicker than other people's thighs. It doesn't mean that if you want to learn how to play the unpopular nunchucks like kung fu superstar Bruce Lee, you won't hit yourself in the face with a stick. The mistake of opening the flower on the nose.
Wehrlein didn't believe that Detective Cat was so talented at sketching that he could also play with an oil painting knife well.
"Such an agent deserves to die!" He complained silently.
Father, like son.
A young African painter can't figure out how much he weighs, so it's not surprising that others have deceived him.
Her agent actually allowed him to use such a painting method, which is obviously unqualified garbage.
"Ding--"
The VIP elevator reaches the floor where the marketing department is located and slowly opens to both sides.
Director Charlie was already waiting at the door. When he saw Wehrlein, he just said hello slightly and motioned for the illustrator to follow him.
Entered the report observation room of the marketing department.
Director Charlie didn't even look at Osborne, but smiled at a short, fat old gentleman with a white moustache and a wrinkled face next to the president, and introduced to Wehrlein.
"The board of directors is very concerned about our little competition. Director Morgan personally flew from the North American headquarters of the Scholastic Group to London to visit the scene as a supervisor. The directors just got off the plane in the morning and rushed here non-stop." Charlie pointed out to Wehrlein. management's interest in the project.
He pointed to the man in a gray suit next to Morgan and said.
"Director of the Marketing Department, you should have known me before. According to the agreement, the winner of this small competition will be issued by the Marketing Department a set of "The Little Prince" special collection illustration book and related peripherals."
Wehrlein stretched out his hand and shook hands with each of these people.
"When the time comes to publish the album, it will be all your hard work."
The marketing department was still there and the volunteers were still entering the venue, but Wehrlein had already smiled as if he had won the victory.
"Congratulations on getting rich. This income may be much more than the price of the contract itself." The marketing director responded with a smile.
The physical book market in Europe and the United States has also declined due to the impact of mobile phones and e-readers such as Kindle.
But Western e-books are also very expensive.
A physical copy of a novel costs US$20, and the electronic version costs about US$10, so the overall royalty income does not change much.
The only exception is the collector's edition gift box and physical album peripherals.
This kind of thing whose collection attribute is greater than reading attribute is generally sold in limited quantities, the sales volume is very stable, and the selling price is very high.
The more classic the work, the more so.
There is a point of view in the market, especially in the North American market where the publishing house is headquartered. Due to the lack of historical accumulation, entertainment products such as collector's edition commemorative books, AAA game gift boxes, and NBA championship rings have certain antique attributes.
for example.
It is also a work published by Scholastic Group.
The first printing of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in 1997 is currently selling for between $500-800 on eBay.
Harry Potter was a collection of souvenir gift boxes that the group decided to produce two years later, in 1999, after discovering the potential for a big hit.
The gift box contains a set of illustrated postcards of the protagonist trio of Harry, Ron and Hermione, and a red leather hardcover edition of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone".
The 99 edition hardcover gift box, which is currently well preserved and has no folded or missing pages, has a second-hand price of approximately US$5,000 to US$8,000.
If it is signed by J.K. Rowling herself.
A set of collectible souvenir gift boxes from 20 years ago can be sold on the market for approximately 18,000 or even 20,000 US dollars.
It's so exaggerated to exchange a gift box for a car.
Readers love to collect this kind of stuff.
Illustrations are much more important to "The Little Prince" than to "Harry Potter". Not only does the illustrator of this kind of gift box issue get a higher commission, but the gain in reputation is also much greater.
Wehrlein is determined to win.
(End of chapter)
