Almighty painter

Chapter 629 Wood Nature

These three carving knives were all purchased during previous classes.

There was a printmaking class in the high school that Gu Weijing attended, but printmaking was not a core subject. In the curriculum syllabus, it and the sculpture class were both placed in the category of general art appreciation.

In tenth grade.

The appreciation class has half a semester for printmaking and half a semester for sculpture.

Said to be sculpture and printmaking.

In fact, I mainly just appreciate pictures of famous artists' works, knead clay sculptures, and learn some basic knife skills.

The carving class is more like playing with plasticine than learning sculpture, and the things carved on the prints are more like carved radish stamps and rubber stamps than prints.

This is how Gu Weijing got those few bits of printmaking experience points on his original system panel.

The three tools that were used at that time were placed in the drawer.

These are the most basic models.

There were two triangular scrapers, a flat scraper, some advanced round-blade knives, bevel-blade knives, and wavy curved knives, but we didn't have any of them at home.

With Gu Weijing's previous level of printmaking, this was completely useless and unnecessary.

And now he has the legendary printmaking technique.

It doesn't matter what tools you use.

This certainly does not mean that Gu Weijing has reached the level in martial arts novels where flying flowers and falling leaves can all be used as swords and carving knives.

This is ridiculous.

A handy knife is still necessary.

If you don't have any tools, just stare at a piece of material and carve it.

No matter how high the skills of Lu Zigang, the successor of Wuzhong's carving skills are, or how rich his carving experience is, it will be of no use. You can't just bite it with your teeth.

It would be more reliable to ask Lu Chengfeng, the top disciple from Peach Blossom Island, to see if he could show us his "Finger Magic".

Special knife techniques and special lines can only be produced with a suitable carving knife, just like ink-splashing large-character calligraphy, which requires a large brush like a rafter to write.

Do not use a fine wolf-hair brush to write large characters in cursive script.

It's just asking too much.

But for Gu Weijing, who has acquired legendary skills, most ordinary engraving methods do not require much dependence on cutting tools.

Whether or not one can achieve a “legendary” level is one thing.

With just a carving knife in hand.

The room he has to play has already surpassed that of countless mediocre craftsmen.

Gu Weijing picked out a triangular carving knife with a blade that was high on both sides and low in the middle, and a V-shaped edge.

Hold the knife like you hold a pen.

He looked at the several palm-sized soft erasers in the drawer for a few seconds, then turned his attention elsewhere.

The eraser is too soft.

The carved works neither show the sharpness of the knife marks, lack the "knife spirit", nor have the fresh and natural wood flavor of the natural texture of the wood carving.

The biggest advantage is that it is extremely easy to use.

It takes almost no effort to carve, and is suitable for students to develop an interest in carving.

There is ultimately a limit to playing with rubber prints in the realm of serious art.

It's not necessarily that it can't be done well, but just like colored pencil drawings and crayon drawings, they are too niche.

With the support of legendary printmaking techniques, Gu Weijing no longer had much interest in continuing to carve like a child, even if it was just casual practice.

His eyes swept around the study.

At last.

His eyes fell on Awang's twisting buttocks... and the big tea stool below.

Tea mound?

As his mind moved, Gu Weijing almost instantly thought of all the details that needed to be paid attention to when using this tea stool as a carving material.

"The wood properties of this tea stool..." Gu Weijing raised his eyebrows and thought.

From the perspective of a tree that grows happily and carefree -

Even if it is blown by wind, snowed in, or exposed to sun and rain, occasionally wild beasts, monkeys, or bastards like Old Man Gu will pee on it.

But they would certainly not be happy to be dragged out to be sawn up to make wood carvings, engraved paintings or tea tables one day.

Therefore, its growth must not follow the sculptor's preferences, but the natural laws of nature.

How to absorb moisture, how to keep moisture and nutrients inside the wood, and how to shape its own "body" to fight against threats caused by insects and microorganisms.

How to fight against the adverse factors around and at the same time integrate into the entire environment and coexist with it.

This kind of "natural law" is what sculptors call "wood flavor" or "wood nature".

The nature of wood is the biggest advantage of woodcuts over lithographs and copperplate prints, which can make patterns and shadows more delicate and exquisite through etching.

Printmaking can never create woodness.

What the best artists can do is to bring out the nature of wood and preserve the nature of wood.

For example, Japanese Ukiyo-e.

Its artistic philosophy is to "go with the flow".

Since using a carving knife is more difficult than using a brush, it requires more experience and there is no room for error. The lines must be smooth, crisp and completed in one go.

Any bending or shaking while carving will immediately ruin the entire work.

Therefore, gradually, many Ukiyo-e craftsmen did the opposite.

They no longer excessively pursue exquisite knife skills, fine lines and complex brushstrokes.

Instead, we focus on restoring and preserving the expression of the wood grain texture under the color of the final printed product as much as possible.

Use the fresh natural properties of wood to replace the difficulties in acquired knife skills.

"Zigang Carving Heart Sutra", the experience this skill brought to Gu Weijing includes the techniques of stone cutting, stone cutting, and kingfisher feather inlaying in the jade trade that are not used in printmaking.

There is surprisingly much content about how to judge the properties of wood and wood materials.

Carving is not just about the knife.

In the eyes of a true master, carving has already begun the moment the base material is selected.

"The tree is 20 years old and is cut down in the spring, which is around April or May, and no later than June."

Gu Weijing thought about this.

Even if the wood is taken from the same tree, the properties of the wood can be very different if it comes from different parts of the tree.

Even in winter and summer, the ambient temperature is different, and the final carving effect will be completely different.

From a scientific point of view, it is probably related to the division rate of tree cells and the seasonal activities of the cambium.

In Lu Zigang's time, people certainly didn't understand cytology or botany, but they gained experience through thousands of hands-on practices.

The answers obtained from practice are the least deceptive things in the world.

Gu Weijing knew that the wood cut down in spring and summer was "smooth and sticky".

The wood will be more "smooth" in spring.

Wood in the summer will be a little more "sandy".

The wood cut down in autumn and winter is "hard and firm" in nature, and there will be greater resistance to cutting.

Changes of this nature can have both good and bad consequences.

Same carving method, same species of tree.

The wood flavor of trees in spring is stronger, while the carvings made by trees in winter have a sharper "knife flavor".

There is only one thing that requires special attention.

If you want to carve some special textures from the bark and transfer wavy wood grain, you must choose wood from trees in the cold winter. Only winter bark can withstand the carving of the carving knife.

In spring and summer, when the tree is moist, the bark will break into pieces by itself if you make two cuts after it dries.

In addition, bark can be used as engraving material.

Tree canopies are also available.

According to Lu Zigang's carving experience, the main branches, side branches and even twigs on the tree crown are all very good carving materials, far better than the pith in the center of the tree.

Everyone knows that the heart of cabbage is the sweetest.

In the field of carving, the pith in the center of the tree is a less popular area. The wood in this area is "dry and has no wood smell, but is also soft and cannot be cut." It also has the characteristic of being very easy to crack after the bark dries in spring.

The most important advantage of pith is actually its color.

The color of the pith is deeper and thicker than that of wood from other places. This feature can be used to tailor the material when making wood carvings, and the pith can be used to highlight different color changes in the final product.

When making prints.

The color of the wood itself is completely irrelevant; what matters is the perfection of the knife stroke.

According to the experience gained from Lu Zigang.

If you can avoid using the pith, then don’t use it.

If you really want the soft texture of the pith, you can also use some main branches at the crown that are not completely dehydrated instead.

As for the side branches and twigs.

They have their own characteristics, but they are too delicate.

In pure printmaking, it is difficult to carve a complete work on a planed twig. It is only in special circumstances that small details can be added by splicing multiple types of wood together.

Gu Tongxiang's precious tea stool is made from a whole section of tree root.

This modern handicraft has hardly undergone any artificial carving, and the natural growth rings of the wood can be clearly seen on the cross-sectional surface.

Tree roots are the enemy of the inexperienced novice carver.

It is the hardest part of the entire tree, which can easily dull the carving knife. Moreover, the roots are connected to the root canals deep under the soil that transport nutrients. Its wood grain will be very messy and very difficult to handle.

An interested look appeared on Gu Weijing's face.

He stood up.

Holding the reluctant Awang, he asked it to find another place to grind its teeth and took out the big treasure of Mr. Gu from under the cat's buttocks.

My fingers brushed through the growth rings on the surface of the tea stool.

"Mahogany? No."

Mr. Gu has been a small vendor all his life, but he always has the heart of a scholar who dares to pretend to be a great artist and is pretentious.

Gu Weijing remembered.

My grandfather always swore at home that the tea stool he exchanged for a painting was made of the finest mahogany.

One tea stool can be exchanged for 20 local cats like Awang.

Gu Weijing didn’t understand these things before.

Now I understand that my grandfather was just talking nonsense.

Don't insult Awang like this.

The cat food cans people eat every month are so delicious that they wish they could exchange them for twenty of these.

If he was not mistaken.

This thing is made of solid wood.

But it is "red rubber wood".

Although the names are similar, red rubber wood has nothing to do with rosewood, nor is it related to real oak.

It is just a darker color of rubber wood.

Rubber wood is the cheapest tree species in the timber market.

Good carving wood should be dense, strong, and not easy to deform. Artists usually choose wood of the same volume and weight to carve the block.

The commonly used unit of volume in timber trade in the Ming Dynasty was "Longquan Liangma", a digital number composed of the length of the timber and its circumference, in units of two, but not the actual weight.

The specific measurement relationship is relatively complex.

In Gu Weijing’s impression.

A piece of high-quality redwood as big as a fist weighs about 8.6 cents. A piece of high-quality oak of the same size, such as Jiangxi's Nanyang Huanghuali, weighs about 7.3 cents.

A piece of rubber wood as big as a fist weighs only six cents and nine cents.

The price difference between these three in the timber market is nearly a hundred times.

Even the American oak, which has a relatively large output, is worth more than twenty times that of rubber wood.

As a result, rubber wood is often misleadingly sold as oak or rosewood to those who do not know the trade.

"What kind of taste is this? You treat this kind of thing as a treasure."

Gu Weijing was speechless for a while.

He had been wondering how a rosewood could grow so big in twenty years and have the texture of rosewood, even though Awang rubbed it with his butt, ground his teeth, and scratched it with his claws.

Normally there won't be so many obvious scratches.

My old man was taken advantage of by others, but he still pretends to be cool every day, holding a teacup and taking photos to post on WeChat Moments.

He is also a talent.

Apart from anything else, Gu Weijing guessed that Grandpa Wu, who runs a wood carving and antique business next door, would definitely be able to tell what this thing is.

We are just old neighbors, so I am giving him some face and pointing it out directly without any bad intentions.

The wood properties of rubber wood are very poor.

Gu Weijing was still walking around the flat surface on the tea stool, examining and thinking carefully.

Printmaking is actually subtraction from the original work on paper.

for example.

The best copy of Tang Dynasty calligraphy, Yu Shinan's copy of Wang Xizhi's "Lanting Preface", was evaluated by later generations as "the brushwork is vigorous, the strokes are deep and smooth, it has the style of Wei and Jin Dynasties, and the ink strokes are subtle and complete, second only to the original."

It is only second to the original, which is already a very high evaluation for the copy of Teng.

Carving requires more experience than using a pen.

The calligraphy art value of the stone steles from the Ming and Qing dynasties that exist today is determined by the calligrapher's handwriting and the stonemason's carving skills.

Considering the difficulty of stone carving.

The connections and turns between the brush and ink, and the changes in the ink lines spread on the raw and cooked rice paper, are extremely difficult to fully express and restore on the stone stele, so it is rare to have 50% of the charm of the original.

According to the four standards of "Yishen Miaoneng" used by the ancient Dongxia to evaluate works of art.

The 50% divine will emanates from here.

It is enough to downgrade a work of art from a "masterpiece" to a "wonderful piece" or even just an "okay piece" worthy of being viewed and appreciated.

An excellent printmaker can use 95-point materials and 95-point tools to create a 95-point work to the level of 70-points.

And a truly outstanding master of carving.

However, he can use materials and tools worth 70 points to restore a work worth 95 points to a level close to 90 points.

even.

You can also use the carving knife in your hand to inject completely different characteristics into the original painting with soft brushstrokes.

Gu Weijing studied the flat surface of the material in his hand.

After a while.

He didn't even use a charcoal stick to draw the traces, nor did he use a brush or ink to sketch out the pattern. He just used a small carving knife to carve on the tea stool.

(End of this chapter)