Almighty painter

Chapter 366 Flat painting practice
"Professor, gravity?"

Wattle nodded.

He picked up the porcelain lid of the teacup on one side and held it in the palm of his hand. There was a layer of tiny droplets formed by the condensation of water vapor on it.

The sketch teacher tilted and rotated the cup lid.

The droplets gradually merge with each other and form several drops of water.

The water droplets finally collided with each other, forming a crystal water ball as big as a soybean.

Gu Weijing stared at the water ball on the arc-shaped surface of the white cup lid, spinning as Vattle's hand shook, feeling as if he was watching some kind of strange balancing game.

"Understood?"

The teacher who was tilting and shaking the porcelain cover in his hand stopped moving his palms.

"You made me feel the flow of paint...the feeling of flowing with gravity after I put down the pen." Gu Weijing guessed what the sketch teacher wanted to say, and asked uncertainly, "It is for this reason, You can’t practice watercolor on a tablet.”

"Right."

Wattle nodded.

"This is the unique charm of water, it is alive. Gu, the greatest charm of watercolor lies in the flexibility of water. The stickiness of oil paints is too strong, and the toothpaste-like colors stick to wherever they are applied. So the moment the tip of the pen comes into contact with the substrate, it’s already set.”

"Well, to describe it with words you are familiar with... it's like the dog-skin plaster sold by the bone-setting shop by the river in Yangon. Just stick it on the canvas."

He couldn't hold back and showed his naked disciplinary discrimination: "Think about it, can you expect a piece of dog-skin plaster to have the ethereal and transparent feeling of art? Of course not. Watercolor is different, it is a kind of art that flows all the time. Art style."

"The paint flows on the paper like liquid beads on a porcelain cup."

"When the artist paints with a brush, the paint will flow along the inclination of the drawing board under the action of gravity, spread, and finally be absorbed by the paper and penetrate into the gaps between the plant fibers."

The German made a clang, put the lid back on the teacup, and curled his lips.

"Watercolor has exquisite properties that oil paintings do not have from its very core. The laws of nature and the artist hold both ends of the brush at the same time and paint on the paper together."

When talking about his old profession, Professor Watter sounded a little proud.

He studied watercolor in college, and since he loves what he does, he naturally thinks watercolor is the best.

In the European and American art circles, watercolor has been sitting on the second throne in the world for a long time in the 600 years from the Middle Ages to today, and cannot move away.

It cannot be said that it is not taken seriously.

But things are often bad because of the saying "No. [-] in the world".

In terms of the number of painters, the attention received by critics, and the popularity of the market, it is always slightly inferior to oil paintings.

Even Turner, a representative master who is the spiritual leader of watercolor painters.

His oil paintings are still more expensive than watercolors.

Although this is due to the fact that he painted [-] watercolors and only a few hundred oil paintings in his lifetime, it is not due to technical factors.

But in the end, regardless of whether the watercolor painters are happy or not, in the auction market, all of Turner's works with a unit price of more than 5000 million US dollars are oil paintings.

think about it.

A woman who thought she was more beautiful has been a concubine for six consecutive centuries, even though she has such nice names as "Mrs. Ru" and "Mrs. Ping" on her head.

How could I resist the urge to tear the doctor apart?

The watercolor painter is this "concubine",
Therefore, painters have to use watercolors and oil paintings on both sides.

Painters who specialize in watercolor painting always have an occupational disease that can't help but make fun of oil painters.

At this moment, Vatel deliberately wanted to stimulate Gu Weijing's interest and prevent this talented student from falling into the "magic path" of loving oil painting.

His square and serious face couldn't help but light up.

"Water is the natural enemy of paper. Two mutually reinforcing elements are cleverly integrated into one in our brushstrokes. What a wonderful and noble painting method this is! It's incomparable to those little painters who can only apply paint to the canvas. Well?"

"As a painter, just learn sketching and watercolor in an art academy. Only those who are not confident in their skills should learn oil painting!" he boasted.

"Regardless of the fact that watercolors are cheap on the market, painting a watercolor is much faster than painting an oil painting. Calculated based on hourly wages, among the middle-level painters with similar incomes, those of us who paint watercolors are the most profitable."

Gu Weijing smiled.

have to.

The effort of a few sentences.

According to Mr. Wattle, the oil painter has changed from an old Chinese medicine doctor applying plasters by the Yangon River to a house painter doing decoration for others.

He mused slightly.

Gu Weijing was definitely not thinking about whether Professor Vattle would get beaten if he put Professor Watter's arguments outside.

Excluding the weird part about oil painting, what the sketch teacher said is really interesting.

Flowing colors——

Gu Weijing had not paid much attention to this characteristic of watercolor painting before.

Whether he uses colored pencils to draw watercolors or draws watercolors on an iPad, there is objectively no way to express the characteristics of this kind of watercolor painting.

"Professor, you didn't seem to mention these statements to us in class before." Gu Weijing asked strangely.

"It makes no sense. If you are talking in this office, I really think that at your age, it is necessary to practice sketching when you are in high school. But if it is not for the exam, you should take watercolor classes, or take oil painting classes. , the difference and significance are not big.”

Wattel spread his hands: "It's usually difficult for you to draw complex painting methods well. You're all laying the foundation. It's good if you can lay the foundation of lines, structure, and color. More malleable Let’s talk about painting techniques in the art academy of the university.”

"More than half of art students have not studied painting in college. Whether they know it or not, there is no essential difference."

"It's just an international school. We don't offer more classes. How can we make your parents feel that the money is well spent." He smiled, "Gu, you can't tell the principal this. If Dulwich College is to be reduced one day, Expenditure and layoffs will be miserable.”

Gu Weijing knew that the teacher was joking with him, but he was still amused.

Similar argument.

Professor Lin Tao also mentioned it when he was taking WeChat online classes.

Art and music, in ancient times, were taught in small classes one-on-one and one-on-one in the East and the West, passed down from master to disciple, because this thing varies from person to person.

The gap between students is particularly large due to their different talents.

Gu Weijing has been studying art for more than ten years. Before he acquired the system, the most powerful technique was semi-professional, which was still at the stage of laying the foundation.

This is a very common phenomenon among art students.Influenced by the traditional concept that all things are inferior, only reading is good.

Dongxia is definitely the region on the planet where parents most aspire for their children to go to a good university, where art students work the hardest and practice the most techniques, and where the art population is the largest.

The total number of students taking art exams every year is around 65.

Professor Lin Tao said that in this vast sea of ​​​​people, there will always be top students who write portraits silently, and still life sketches are particularly impressive, and their drawings make the marking teachers feel inferior.

But overall.

Among the total 65 art students, there is nothing else to talk about.

In fact, there are not many students who can draw people as if they are individuals at the most basic level.

Even pitifully little.

Gu Weijing's semi-professional level of painting made Brother Hao take a fancy to his talent, so he sent a bald boy to visit with bundles of cash to increase the number of new blood for his counterfeit painters.

Professor Wattel believes that in high school, art students only need to lay a good foundation of lines, structures, and colors. It is not surprising that there is no special need to know too much about specific techniques.

"But I think you're different."

Wattel leaned forward, put his hands on his chin, and stared at Gu Weijing's cheek.

"I think since you said you want to improve your watercolors in particular, you probably want to hear some different viewpoints, some more original viewpoints."

"Yes, sir."

Gu Weijing nodded to express his gratitude.

"So, how do I get better, practice watercolor on paper?"

"Practice watercolor on watercolor paper and feel the spiritual flow of liquid. Don't use sketch paper for cheap. Different papers have different water absorption rates. This is the most basic. Only watercolors painted on watercolor paper can be truly A work worthy of the term 'watercolor'."

Professor Watter thought for a moment, "You said you found that you couldn't control the color mixing of the paint when you were doing the dyeing?"

"Yes, I want to use some simple painting methods. So I didn't try more advanced painting methods such as gradient method, wet painting method, and dry chamfering method. I just started with the more basic painting methods."

"I use techniques like covering dyeing and whitening more often in oil paintings——"

"No, don't dye it, it's wrong."

Watter interrupted Gu Weijing with a wave of his hand.

"What?" Gu Weijing didn't understand.

"Oil painting is oil painting, and watercolor is watercolor. Don't practice overlay dyeing. For those who have not found a complete way, the most basic and essential painting methods can bring about the most significant improvement." Professor Watter said, "Overlay dyeing The method is not basic enough, so you need to make it more difficult.”

"for example?"

"Such as the flat coating method."

"Instead of practicing the overlay dyeing method, practice flat painting, painting some simple square houses, chimneys and other basic large-scale patterns. It's like practicing using a sketch pencil to paint small grids in class."

Gu Weijing said softly.

Flat coating method.

Indeed, he could not imagine that there was any simpler painting method in the world than flat painting.

It is so simple that it requires no special explanation.

As the name suggests, the so-called flat painting is to dip a brush into a single color of paint and apply it sequentially from left to right.

Professor Wattel satirized that oil painters use plasterers to do their work, but the flat painting method is actually not much different from using a paint roller to paint a house.

It's so simple that even a three-year-old child can practice it by himself in a kindergarten. It's so simple that it can't even be called a specific "drawing method."

"Will practicing flat painting help me improve? Teacher, I don't mean anything else, but this may be a bit too basic. It is more similar to using a brush to draw horizontal lines and using a pencil to learn to write 1, this basic way of using pens. "Gu Weijing didn't believe it.

"Although it is basic, it also has the widest range of applications. Any text is composed of strokes. Writing good strokes is the basis for writing good calligraphy. And if you practice flat painting, you will be able to paint overlays, gradients, and wet The basics of painting with advanced techniques such as painting and drying.”

"And Gu, the flat painting method is not as simple as you think. The difficulty is not the flat painting, the real difficulty is to let your heart follow the flow of the brush."

Watter stood up and opened a door at the back of the office.

"Come on, it's better to try it than to hear it. Once we draw it, you should probably understand it."
-
Most of the foreign professors in the school, like Vattel, received basic salaries and remote subsidies that were 2% to 3% higher than those in Europe, Japan, and Shanghai campuses, and were guaranteed to provide a good working environment before being admitted to Dulwich College. Please come and be stationed in Yangon.

Not only do they have a housing allowance.

The office also has a large suite for teachers to hold large-scale club activities in the school, rest directly in the school during student work exhibitions, and take lunch breaks at noon.

The commercial apartment that Watter rents is right next to the Dulwich campus, a 5-minute ride away by bike.

There is no single bed in the suite in his office. Instead, it is arranged like a small painting studio.

There are still various picture frames hanging on the wall. There is no oil painting easel. Instead, there is a large solid wood workbench, which takes up most of the space in the room. There is a picture frame on the table and a log-colored stand and several plastic watering cans filled with water.

"Letting the paint flow and spread does not mean letting it drip uncontrollably on the paper. I asked someone to customize the shelf. The painting support and the horizontal ground present an angle of 15 degrees, which is the perfect angle for gravity to work its magic. "

Vatel's palms faced each other, simulating an angle leaning toward a plane.

"I suggest you use a watercolor stand like this when practicing watercolor, or a custom-made workbench with adjustable inclination. Of course, if conditions are unavailable and when collecting photos outdoors, you can also use a simple foam pad instead. "

He patted the shelf on the workbench: "When you have been painting for many years, you can directly pick up the drawing board and put it on your lap, and you can accurately set the desired plane inclination angle."

"Of course, this is a matter for the future."

Watter took a drawing board and watercolor paper from outside and handed them to Gu Weijing.

"Practice painting grids?"

Gu Weijing asked as he fixed the watercolor paper on the drawing board.

"Oh, no, the flat painting method is simple, but you don't need such a simple practice. With your line skills, we can make it a little more difficult without starting from the most basic practice."

Watter picked up the picture frame on the table and handed it to Gu Weijing.

"Museum Island - Berlin's landmark building, on the island in the center of the city, consists of the New and Old Museums, the National Gallery, the Pergamon Museum, the Bode Museum and many other art galleries. The old museum is the It was built as a Greek temple. It includes spherical vaults and columns covered with intricate carvings. It was once Goethe's favorite."

"Don't be afraid, I'm not a devil. I won't ask you to challenge such a difficult landscape painting."

"See the covered bridge built along the river on the far right side of the picture. It is a simple rectangular building. We will draw it this time."

(End of this chapter)