Almighty painter

Chapter 434 Watercolor Improvement (Happy New Year!)

(I wish all readers a happy New Year and all the best!)

"When the Prince of Hanover originally sold the mansion to the Lower Saxony state government for one euro, the original transaction contract stipulated that Germany would invest no less than 3750 million euros to completely renovate the 135 rooms of Marin Castle."

Elliot examined the photocopied document at hand.

“Due to financial problems and the decrease in tourists due to the epidemic in the past two years, the state government seems to be unable to afford such a large amount of expenditure. After adding the current investment allocation of 3000 million, it stopped construction for three or four years before renovating one building. Xiaoban, the budget is rising steadily. That’s why we want to leave this trouble to us.”

The secretary's mouth was flat and she spoke very venomously.

"Humph, this is not a kind-hearted olive branch. This is asking us to wipe the state government's butt!"

"This kind of 19th-century castle wants to be renovated to the level of infrastructure of a large modern museum, with running water, electricity, and a visitor center. It must also ensure that the overall style of the building is not affected, and the minimum additional investment will be more than 7000 million euros. If it is to be completed within a year, it may be more safe to add another 2000 million."

"Miss, you think it's not cost-effective and you want me to reject it, right?"

"actually……"

Eliot was sarcastic.

Excellent buildings and excellent collections can produce an effect of 1+1 greater than 2.

Most of them are available for rent.

Although the local government does not recognize it.

But on the other hand, in terms of wealth inheritance, the Elena family is much richer than the Prince of Hanover.

But unless she uses the manor where she lives to open a family art museum.

For example, the Vatican Museum is the papal palace, the Louvre is the palace of the King of France, the Russian Hermitage Museum is the palace of Emperor Ye, and the original site of the Picasso Museum is a medieval palace in Ribera.

Just like when people think of the Louvre, in addition to the "Mona Lisa" and "Venus Broken Arm", they can also immediately think of the magnificent Renaissance-style palace and the palace designed by Mr. Ieoh Ming Pei in front of it. crystal pyramid.

Even the country castle properties owned by the Elena family.

If we go around the seventh aunt and the eighth aunt, we can still have some cousins ​​with Ole.

The Marin Castle is a Romanesque palace that is both significant and gorgeous.

But the Hanover family can still be called princes in the media.

Those pink castles imagined by girls in most fairy tales.

However, the budget-conscious government departments spent tens of millions of euros on renovations.

She and Mr. Hyperion first met because the big internet celebrity rented a dusty, gothic castle she owned to shoot adventure videos.

This was also the former palace of the Prince of Hanover.

Although it is expensive to modify.

There is no water, no electricity, spider webs are everywhere, dirt is falling from the walls, and the use value is very low.

Unless the meaning is important or gorgeous.

There is no lack of the down-and-out count in Europe who lives in a castle in the countryside of Bavaria and rents a small apartment in Berlin every day to deliver pizza on his bicycle.

But it was also an empire that collapsed in World War I.

otherwise.

Anyway.

He also has some distant relatives from the former Habsburg family.

In fact, they are all very cumbersome industries.

The state government that has been trying to repair it is almost unable to afford it.

Compared with those medieval knights’ castles in the countryside that no one spends 100,000 or 200,000 euros on, isn’t it a manifestation of high cultural value?

This generation of Prince of Hanover is the head of the Welf royal family and the great-grandson of William II.

It is destined that its influence will not be low.

Ole said that his cousin was an Austrian landowner, and it was not groundless.

No one wants to turn it into an Airbnb B&B to allow international tourists to try something new.

Many of the most impressive museums in the world are built on palaces of the past.

Otherwise, it would be difficult to find another historical building as luxurious, exquisite, and large enough as Marienburg.

Although Anna does not lack land, she even does not lack castles.

Since Weimar, Germany has been far more tolerant and generous towards aristocratic groups than Austria.

They have become symbols of Western art as a whole.

Art galleries and museums.

But there is one thing.

The palace is a high profile museum of pedigree.

A museum that can be built on a culturally protected building is like a racehorse with a thoroughbred pedigree.

She still felt in her heart that this deal was actually a good deal.

Unlike Anna, who is strictly required by law, even her middle name, Feng, is banned.

Don’t forget the world-famous Palace Museum in Eastern Xia.

The British Museum has been laughed at by the French for many years just because its headquarters is newly built.

of course.

Except for the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

It's just a North American old hat thing.

No one will scoff.

The European cousins ​​were just generous and showed mercy to these uneducated cowboys.

"We may not necessarily spend a lot of money. Counting the donations we have received from galleries and Oil Painting these days, with our current cash reserves, we should be able to cover the renovation costs."

Elliot was worried that he had used too much force and made the lady change her mind.

"I raised these questions, but I just feel that since Marienburg cannot be repaired or sold to the Lower Saxony state government, this kind of historical building cannot be sold to any commercial company casually. It is completely a hot potato. , we will defeat them."

"You can at least ask the other party to provide a low-interest loan, and then ask the other party to rebuild a rural connecting road of about 2 kilometers between the Marin Castle and the A5 highway. At least it should be expanded to four lanes..."

"We'll talk about these things later. That's not what I'm talking about."

Miss Elena shook her head, "I'm referring to the Scholastic Group's awards. Please push it for me."

She turned around while pushing her wheelchair, put her phone aside, and looked out the window.

suddenly.

Anna seemed to have lost interest in the renovation plan that cost tens of millions of euros.

The girl stared silently at the flower garden outside the window of the manor.

"Oh, oh oh, okay."

Elliot thought hard for three seconds.

Only then did he dig out what the young lady said deep in the corners of his mind.

American publishing groups like to ride on the hype.

They value public opinion and the business creed of quick response.

Not only did Sir Brown give a speech, the head of the Scholastic Group had almost given up on the detective cat.

This was also reflected in the wave of applause waiting for Anna to finish her speech.

The boss immediately finalized the nominees for the award and sent an invitation very quickly, asking Anna if she would be a guest at this awards show.

Elliot was about to forget all about it.

She didn't follow the group's announcement and didn't know Detective Cat had been nominated.

Whether it is Anna's current popularity in the public opinion field or her return to "Oil Painting" magazine, taking on the important position of manager of the visual arts column.

Similar activities include attending art festivals, biennales, and serving as guests.

In the past few days, we have received not only ten cases, but eight cases. Even the organizing committee of the Venice Biennale sent an invitation.

But Anna refused because the editor of "Oil Painting" was not suitable to serve as a judge for art exhibitions.

The importance of American awards in Europe is correspondingly lower.

strange?

Miss Anna seems to be acting a little abnormally.

Even after seeing the announcement, people around him like Elliot would feel that... the other person seemed to pay a little too much attention to Detective Cat himself.

More than an admiring painter, or a tool for slapping Sir Brown in the face.
-

Gu Weijing took out a metal key from his pocket.

Twist the door lock and open the door.

This afternoon the sketching teacher Vatel has a class for advanced classes, and there is no one in the office.

Gu Weijing walked straight into the suite in the back room.

The golden sunlight passes through the window and falls on the workbench. There are various pigments floating in the air, the smell of dried pine wood and glycerin mixed together by the golden sunlight.

Slightly bitter.

It doesn’t smell good or bad, if you ask art students what it feels like to “create art”.

It's probably the breath that lingers on the tip of the nose.

Professor Wattel gave Gu Weijing a spare key to the office door.

He is welcome to come over and practice on his own in the afternoon when he is free, or when his classmates are in advanced classes.

this week.

Gu Weijing would come here almost every day and spend two or three hours completing the practice of a watercolor painting.

From repeated flat painting, to some simple landscapes that exercise color matching.

Just leave the painting here when you're done.

Mr. Wattel would take the drawing away, leave a note, and point out any shortcomings in the exercise as if he were correcting homework.

so cycle.

Yesterday, Gu Weijing tried to use low-saturation gray mixed with red, yellow and blue colors, combined with white space liquid, to try to paint a scene of the sparkling Spree River under the Museum Island Covered Bridge.

It expresses water waves, mirrors, and sunlight.

Whether in oil painting, Chinese painting, or watercolor, this is already a relatively complex combination painting method.

Gu Weijing found the note left by Watter on the workbench.

There is only a simple "good" evaluation above.

The master leads me in. Cultivation is personal.

In terms of total experience, the watercolor level of the German teacher is still slightly ahead of Gu Weijing.

Perhaps the theory of watercolor painting that was taught to Gu Weijing, from flat painting to gradient blending, had already been given to him in a small class in the evening a few days ago.

Once Gu Weijing started to get started, there wasn't much advice I could give him during practice.

The comments on the notes left for Gu Weijing each time were decreasing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The very first day.

Several notes were filled with instructions on how to control the saturation of paint, reminding him how to press the edges of the colors with watercolor brushes and drag them repeatedly to soften the edges.

the day after.

I can only suggest that when expressing a dense foggy atmosphere, the amount of cobalt blue and raw ocher can be increased by one point, while the dose of permanent rose red can be reduced by one point.

The third day was more streamlined and general.

……

Wattel was secretly shocked by Gu Weijing's improvement in watercolor skills and his profound art foundation in the three major areas of color, line, and structure.

He also found helplessly that besides carefully putting away all these watercolor practice paintings.

It is already difficult for Vettel to make very constructive comments.

Of course, Gu Weijing's works are far from perfect to the audience. Germans can see some imperfections and disharmony.

But if you let him clearly point out where the problem lies and make appropriate suggestions for modification.

Excuse me.

Vettel knows that this is too high of his own level.

He is not Cao Xuan, Lin Tao or Sakai Kazunari.

Students approaching Level 4 vocational level are no longer within the scope of daily instruction provided by teachers employed by Dulwich College.

So here we are today.

On this afternoon when the weekend was approaching again, Gu Weijing found that the note left for him on the workbench only contained a simple "good" comment.

In fact, whether Gu Weijing still goes to Wattel's office to paint is no longer meaningful in terms of improving his skills.

However, the work table here at Vattel that can be tilted at a standard 15-degree angle is specially made.

This stuff is not available everywhere.

Gu Weijing had already ordered an easel with manually adjustable angles online. Before the easel arrived, he wanted to avoid delaying his practice progress.

He was still used to skipping class and taking time to come to the other party's office to polish his watercolor skills.

This is also Gu Weijing's most important task every day at school.

He put his school bag on the floor in the corner, took out a piece of heat-pressed fine-grained watercolor paper from the cabinet, and fixed it on the workbench with construction paper tape.

I glanced at the photo of Museum Island that was usually placed on the table.

Then he opened the system experience value panel and took a look - [Watercolor Painting Technique: lv.3 Semi-Professional (951/1000)]

Then he lowered his head and started typing.

Gu Weijing's typewriting today is different from the line drawings he typed during previous exercises.

He didn't write about the covered bridge, nor about the water surface.

Gu Weijing practiced the flat painting of the covered bridge twice before he became familiar with it. It was already difficult for him to gain a large sum of experience points quickly.

The reason why he doesn’t paint water is because it won’t help him overcome the bottleneck of watercolor techniques.

The reason is exactly the opposite for covered bridges.

It is really difficult to express the luster of the water surface, the flat lake and the rapid flow, and the various fogs vividly.

Gu Weijing didn't control it very well.

Even though Teacher Wattel gave him a favorable comment of "Above Expected" on the note.

But you know your own level best.

Whether it's the strenuous feeling when drawing, or the few hours of practice on the system panel, the total experience value is only increased.

It's all explained.

Gu Weijing used the smudge gradient technique to paint the water surface. He simply meant that he could paint and had the knowledge and theory to use this technique.

There is still a long way to go before I can create a masterpiece.

The changes in light and shadow are more complex and subtle than the smooth covered bridge, and the sky is simpler than the ripples on the water.

It just so happens that it should be a subject that can bring enough challenges to you without being too strenuous.

There are two main types of clouds in watercolor.

One is bright clouds on a dark background. The key point is to control the soft edge of the pen. The difficulty is to make the clouds look like a ball of fluffy cotton without making too obvious pen marks.

The other way around.

Dark clouds on a light background. The key point is to adjust the color, making the clouds look like a hazy mist under the sunlight.

(End of this chapter)