Almighty painter

Chapter 120 Drawing Knife Painting Trial
Gu Weijing returned home, closed the bedroom door, and opened the work email he had left on the Fiverr website.

He browsed for a moment,

Just found the cooperation invitation that Scholastic said on Twitter.

"Dear Ms. Artist Detective Cat:

Scholastic Group has always been committed to cooperating with outstanding artists from all over the world, providing opportunities for bright new stars in the illustration industry to show themselves... It is a great honor to invite you to participate in the group's "The Little Prince" project.

Now, we officially provide you with a trial draft contract. (Specific relevant details have been attached in the appendix at the end of the article.)
If you are willing to accept our invitation, please send the prepared sample to the email of the project assistant no later than [-]:[-] p.m. London time this Sunday. Overdue will be regarded as an automatic waiver of the contract.

If you have any doubts or questions about the contract, please contact the group's legal counseling office with you or your agent broker...

——Good luck, Scholastic Group "The Little Prince" project team. "

It took Gu Weijing a few minutes to simply scan through the contents of the email.

This is an invitation to try out a manuscript from a publisher.

The draft trial contract is not a formal draft assignment. It is more of a final interview for the employer to test the painter's ability after he has a preliminary intention to cooperate with a certain painter before signing a large order.

For example, a weekly news magazine may have about [-] illustrations, and the newspaper office will take out one page as a trial draft before the first cooperation.

Not all illustrators are happy to try out drafts.

It is rumored that some employers in the industry will cheat the artist's works for free in the name of trial drafts.

But on the publishing giants, the risk of being scammed is minimal.

Not only that,

It is an honor to be invited by the Scholastic Group for trial draft.

The draft proposal in the mailbox is obviously more standardized and formal than the grass-roots team-style cooperation model that Gu Weijing took orders on the Internet before.

Even if it was just a trial draft, the publisher still provided a contract with dozens of pages and a more detailed mission statement.

He doesn't have an agent yet, so these documents need to be handled by Gu Weijing himself.

Gu Weijing clicked on several files attached to the bottom of the email.

The first is two separate draft style books and drawing format books.

The style book stipulates the employer's requirements for the painter's painting style, whether the picture is thick or flat, whether the line draft should be colored, whether it is a flat style or a forest style, etc.

The format book stipulates the size of the draft, and if it is electronic painting, it stipulates the printing resolution and pixel size required by the original electronic album.

These two documents are the basis for a serious solicitation program in the illustration industry.

Some troublesome employers even have strict agreements on the sorting of the scene layers of the electronic draft and the types of brushes used by the painter.

It will take a long time to change these cumbersome formats required by Party A with a computer.

"This... is very tolerant."

Gu Weijing nodded.

Ms. Sakai Katsuko's guess is correct. Judging from the requirements of this document, the publishing house really regards itself as a first-line illustrator.

industry,
The more high-end the project, the less red tape constraints employers tend to give artists.

It is more about giving a conceptual macro request, while in terms of specific painting methods, it is willing to give well-known painters more freedom to create.

The "Little Prince" project team only requires that the sample draft must be in color, and the printing resolution after scanning must be above 400PPI (pixel unit density). There are no strict requirements for the specific painting method.

The final document is the instruction letter.

The instruction book is a summary of the content of the illustration contract, that is, the specific content that the publisher wants you to draw.

The length of this PDF is not long, only two short sentences.

[Content of the drawing of the trial draft: take the 8th verse of "The Little Prince" - "On the planet of the little prince, there used to be some simple flowers growing. One morning they will bloom in the grass, and at night they all wither quietly." Create an illustration for the theme. 】

[Requirements: The color is dreamy, blurred, warm, with enough sense of space and layering, in line with the author Saint-Exupéry's true feelings, with fairy tale temperament, and has enough impact on children. 】

"Dreamy, blurred, warm..."

Gu Weijing stared at the draft assignment in the mailbox for a moment.

"A fairy tale contract!" He was pleasantly surprised.

Fairy tale illustrations were originally the type of tasks that Gu Weijing most hoped to receive after he got the painting.

Compared with the paintbrush, the carving of fine details in painting with knife painting is insufficient, but it is the inherent advantage of this painting method in expressing the blurred colors in the style of children's fairy tales.

It's like milk met Oreo, butter met butter knife.

The painting method of painting knife painting coupled with "The Little Prince", which requires a sense of space and is born with a fantasy fairy tale temperament, is a perfect match, and it is the right medicine.

After all,
The original origin of painting knife painting comes from the painter's relentless pursuit of space and beautiful colors.

The painting temperament of Huadao painting is very similar to the ethereal atmosphere that is out of the world and not eating fireworks pursued by the aestheticism school of the [-]th century.

The slogan pursued by the school of aestheticism is originally derived from the creed in Wilde's fairy tales - the real world is the enemy of art, and all art comes from innocence.

Coincidentally,

Although two centuries ago, when aestheticism was just born, painting with knives could not be regarded as an independent painting style.

But those famous representatives of aestheticism, whether it is Edward Jones or James Whistler, like to use a large number of oil painting knives in their painting process.

Whistler, a great American national treasure painter, is considered to be one of the founders of the oil painting knife painting method.

Gu Weijing liked this contract very much.

Not only was the request of the other party completely covered by his own legendary knives and knives painting techniques, but also the invitation for a trial draft came from the youth publishing giant Scholastic Group.

This kind of large publishing group is almost the favorite partner of illustrators.

The negative problems of ordinary small publishing houses, such as long payment cycle, low sales share, lack of book marketing channels, etc., were not problems at all before Scholastic.

Not only is the remuneration generous, but every additional book sold is a silent advertisement for the illustrator.

Gu Weijing was really surprised as if he was hit by a pie from the sky.

He pondered for a moment, but he didn't immediately start drawing hastily. Instead, he bought an old version of "The Little Prince" on Amazon, and quickly flipped through it from beginning to end.

Drawing illustrations for "The Little Prince" itself does not have high requirements for illustrators.

There is no need for Gu Weijing to have any additional ideas.

Because Saint-Exupéry has drawn hundreds of illustrations for this book while creating this book, even reaching the point where each page has an independent illustration.

In the past, many classic versions of "The Little Prince" all used the original author's own graffiti as illustrations.

The Scholastic Group also hesitated again and again before making the decision to update the original author's illustrations.

This decision is a bit of a last resort.

First of all, Saint-Exupéry himself is not a professional painter. The level of these illustrations is very average, and some are just drafts of amateur level.

But the more important reason is that they cannot get the illustration copyright of the original Little Prince.

This is a very embarrassing thing.

Scholastic's main competitor in North America, the original "Little Prince" copyright holder, Townsendsman Publishing Group, successfully relied on legally complex operations and lobbying activities to separately register the illustration image of the little prince in the United States as an independent "Cartoon characters" outside the text.

In North America, the copyright protection period for cartoon illustrations is 95 years after the death of the author.

To put it more bluntly,
Although the text of "The Little Prince" entered the public domain, its original illustrations are still in the hands of competitors, and they cannot use them.

Or hire a new illustrator,

Otherwise, only white text will be published.

There is no third option.

In the publishing industry, using well-known classic illustrations as a moat for book copyright is one of the common operations of publishing companies.

In addition to "The Little Prince", such as the series of illustrations created by the illustrator Shepard for the novel "The Wind in the Willows", etc., are all like this.

Even if publishing companies in non-competing Asian countries want to introduce them to the domestic market, the quotation for the copyright of the illustration itself is much higher than the quotation for the text of the novel itself.

Even so,

In the draft requirements, Scholastic also asked the artist to use Saint-Exupéry's own illustration tone as the blueprint.

But then again,
This eased Gu Weijing's creative burden. With Saint-Exupéry's original rough design, he only needs to draw his own painting on this blueprint.

Gu Weijing carefully scanned the original illustrations of "The Little Prince", and occasionally put an identification technique.

From a professional artistic point of view, there is nothing surprising about these illustrations, but the original author's illustrations are always the version that is most closely linked to the article.

After browsing from beginning to end, Gu Weijing had an idea of ​​the general composition of the picture.

He turned off the computer, went to the easel, stretched the canvas, then mixed some paint with an oil painting knife, and gently drew the first twisted arc on the canvas.

just ten seconds,

A single layer of rose-colored petals grew on the screen, followed by the second, and the third. Green shade and grass spread around the flower, and then the uneven land...

If there were bystanders watching Gu Weijing's painting movements at this time, he would definitely open his mouth wide in surprise.

It's so fast!

like some kind of magic,
In just a few minutes, a grass with blooming flowers has appeared on the canvas from the general outline.

There was no trace of hesitation in Gu Weijing's movements, and he was smooth and flowing.

He didn't even need any additional coloring, with a gentle wrist, the oil paint knife was gently picked and touched on the palette, and the paint was mixed together like thick cream, and then he slapped it on the canvas.

The difficulty of painting with a painting knife lies in the control. Even the smallest pear-shaped painting knife has several times the contact surface with the canvas itself when applying paint, which is several times that of a normal brush.

Controlling a painting knife is a great subject, not only about skills, but also about feeling.

It is impossible to adjust the painting knife to smear the paint.

When you shake your hands or hesitate when you "cut the knife", the paint will show ripples like water waves under the uneven pressure.

What matters is a clean and neat one.

If someone looks like an old lady crossing the road when drawing with an oil painting knife, hesitating and trembling and not daring to use the knife, then the final effect of the painting will definitely not be very good.

Almost all masters who know knife skills are very fast when painting with oil painting knives.

It is common for a traditional oil painting to be painted for two or three weeks, or even one or two months.

But the time of drawing with a knife is basically calculated in hours or even minutes.

But Gu Weijing was no longer fast in the general sense, it was as if he was using magic to conjure a painting out of thin air.

This is the charm of legendary skills,

His familiarity with oil painting knives has even surpassed the scope of ordinary practice makes perfect.

The oil painting knife is an extra extension of his arm,

In many cases, Gu Weijing doesn't even need to think about which step he has reached in the painting, as long as he follows his feeling, the thoughts in his heart will be quickly expressed on the paper.

at last,

Gu Weijing stopped.

He stared at the picture in front of him. Rose-colored flowers bloomed on the green grass, and the uneven land like the moon spread around.

On the whole, it looks like a fairly mature drawing with a knife, with a feeling of desolation and dream, bright and vivid.

"not enough."

Gu Weijing pondered deeply, and he felt that there was something missing in this painting.

Lacking... the fairy-tale temperament that can catch people's attention.

He stared at the picture for a moment, then took a deep breath, and with a straight-bladed metal oil paint knife, he began to scrape away the paint on the squeezed canvas with a straight-bladed metal oil painting knife.

madman!

In the eyes of any knowledgeable painter, Gu Weijing's approach is quite unreasonable, and he even thinks that he is destroying this work frantically.

The oil painting knife scrapes off the paint on the canvas or drawing board. In addition to being used to correct the picture, this behavior is indeed a painting technique.

After the paint is scraped off, it will form a layer of paint that is squeezed and trapped in the texture of the pressed hemp canvas, resulting in a unique color expression of fuzzy ghosting, which can be used to increase the surface texture of the painting.

But this method has always been used to deal with the thin layer of paint applied by the brush.

The oil painting knife painting method is a very typical thick coating method.

Gu Weijing's wide-open and wide-open painting method, the layers of paint on the canvas are covered together like different flavors of cream on the cake embryo, which is a few millimeters thick.

With such a squeeze, the upper and lower layers of paint are messy and twisted together, and the picture is easily dirty and unreadable.

Gu Weijing was not crazy, he did it on purpose.

This is the extraordinary control of the legendary painting method that brings him courage.

He is confident that he can use the oil painting knife as an external force, and further squeezing forces the different layers of paint to gradually mix under his control.

It's like a chain reaction,
The controllable extrusion and mixing of pigments can produce a hazy and misty fusion effect under the action of external force.

The uncontrollable reaction will be like an atomic bomb, blowing up the picture to pieces.

The difference between success and failure is the almost imperceptible difference between the strength and angle of the oil painting knife.

Gu Weijing has confidence in himself, and also has confidence in legendary painting techniques.

He mixed different paints little by little, and finally at a certain moment, the whole picture formed a thin and transparent feeling.

The lower layer of paint and the upper layer of paint are skillfully combined to form a mixed color effect.

The light is dense,

Like a fairy tale.

(End of this chapter)