Almighty painter

Chapter 86 Copying Oil Paintings
As soon as Gu Weijing got home, he went back to his studio in the painting and calligraphy shop.

It's better to choose a day than to hit the sun,

Now that he has selected a suitable work, he wants to copy this oil painting again today.

Gu Weijing quickly found canvases, brushes, palette knives, and palettes in the studio.

He also deliberately took a bottle of chemically synthesized quick-drying medium from the cabinet.

Contrary to what many people imagine, oil paints cannot be diluted with water, but special drying oils must be used.In the process of gradual volatilization of drying oil, a layer of dry oil film will be formed on the surface of the canvas, which plays a role in fixing the pigment.

Oils of different formulations dry at completely different speeds after exposure to air.

There are fast and slow,

The formula with fast drying speed is called "lean oil" in the industry, and the formula with slow drying speed and high oil content is called "fat oil" in the industry.

When painting any oil painting, the first important principle that learners learn is the fat cover thin principle.

To put it bluntly, the lower the pigment, the faster the formula should dry.

The higher the paint layer, the slower the formula should dry.

If it is reversed, the top layer of paint will dry and shrink with the bottom layer of paint first, which will cause the top layer of paint to harden, and the surface will crack or even slag.

There are quick and slow ways to paint an oil painting, and there are slow and slow ways to paint.

Generally speaking, more classical painting methods often use dry painting.

For Gu Weijing's oil painting of the Mercedes-Benz car model, it took almost a month to wait for each layer of paint to dry completely, just painting the front and back.

However, Impressionist works usually have relatively thick paint and strong expressive brushstrokes, which can be covered layer by layer with wet paint.

Coupled with the chemical quick-drying medium developed by modern oil painting manufacturers, if the speed is fast, an oil painting will be finished in one afternoon.

Gu Weijing stretched a canvas of suitable size on the frame and fixed it.

He chose a white canvas covered with chemical acrylic.

Like the paint, the white base covering the surface of the canvas can be adjusted with lithopone, white powder and yourself if you want to pursue perfection.

But after all, this is the first time to copy this master work.

Gu Weijing knew that he probably couldn't draw very well, so there was no need to worry about these details.

It's like getting a score of [-] or more in the exam first, and then it makes sense to pursue the paper score and whether the writing is good or not.If you have the time to worry about repainting the canvas, it is better to copy the painting several times to make greater progress.

Gu Weijing first scanned the entire painting into an electronic version with a contactless scanner in the gallery, and then projected the electronic photo on the canvas with a projector.

Here's another quick copy trick.

Gu Weijing has a strong sense of space, which is actually very advantageous when copying works of art.Gu Weijing can draw very accurately if he draws the original drawing slowly with a pencil, but it is too time consuming.

Anyway, he will definitely copy "The Old Church in a Thunderstorm" many times.

The focus of the first copy is to figure out the painting process of this painting, understand the color principle of this painting and familiarize yourself with the composition.

Gu Weijing used a clever way to save time by projecting the original painting with a projector.

He adjusted the projector so that the size of the picture coincided with the canvas.

At the beginning of drawing with pencils on the canvas, Gu Weijing discovered the changes brought about by his improvement in sketching in the past month.

Smooth——

This is Gu Weijing's greatest feeling.

With the help of the projector, the painter can quickly build the large shapes in the oil painting theme, but the small shapes still need to be adjusted continuously during the in-depth process.

It is still a test of the ability to use a sketch pen.

This is not without the help of Menzel's skills, Gu Weijing is purely painting with his own ability.

In the past, he would often copy famous paintings under the guidance of the school's art teacher. His drafts were also very accurate, but the copying process was very difficult.

Strictly speaking, he felt that he was drawing rather than drawing.

But now, with the first-level professional sketching skills, he finally has the feeling that his pen is following him, not that he is following the pen.

Gu Weijing pursued his own train of thought, and gradually restored the general spatial relationship of the picture with lines as clearly as possible.

At this time, the advantages of sketching on the spot from the original work began to be gradually reflected.

Gu Weijing kept stopping his brush to compare it with the original drawing in front of him.

Sometimes he just hastily glanced at the original painting, and sometimes, Gu Weijing stared at the painting for a long time, and occasionally he even put down his brush and walked back and forth in the studio.

He looked straight at the church on the picture frame, from far to near, and then from near to far.

To have enough sense of communication with the original painting itself is the state that painters most desire in copying, and it is also something that copying electronic albums can't do at all.

It's like the difference between listening to an English tape and having a conversation with an English teacher in person.

It is said that a few years ago, a painter suddenly cried when he was copying Adolf Menzel's realistic masterpiece "Steel Factory" describing the life of bourgeois workers in an art gallery.

Someone asked him why,
The painter replied: "I feel the sparks like hell, splashing on my body."

An oil painting is like a piece of amber that solidifies the painter's spirit. It is alive and changes in various light and shadows when viewed from different angles.

Like Gu Weijing, who walks around and observes repeatedly, only when he buys the painting home can he get such good treatment.

As Gu Weijing wrote faster and faster, dense and complicated lines appeared on the canvas.

After about half an hour, Gu Weijing put down his pencil.

It's just a pencil sketch, so there's no need to express light and shadow very carefully, just a general shape is enough.

"Well, there are still many imperfections, but the general shape is like this."

He turned off the projector, placed his draft next to the original painting, studied it for a few seconds, and generally passed the test.

Gu Weijing's draft divided the picture into three parts.

The sky in the thunderstorm is the background color, the architectural structure of the church is the main body, and the two statues of the Virgin Mary in front of the church are close shots.

After the sketching work is done, it is time to prepare the base color.

Gu Weijing began to mix oil paints.

Soon, he frowned.

"Not quite right."

Even though he hadn't started coloring yet, Gu Weijing already felt that he had nowhere to start at this step.

He took a look at his oil painting panel - [Oil Painting: Semi-professional lv.3 (217/1000)].

Legend has it that the sage's lectures can make ordinary people realize suddenly, and lotus will grow from mud.

Looking directly at works that have been systematically evaluated as saints of painting seems to have a similar effect.

Gu Weijing's reckless behavior of appreciating Ray Arnold's works, although he was directly carried away to the hospital.

But when he woke up, he found that with just one glance, his oil painting skills had increased a lot out of thin air, reaching the Lv.3 semi-professional level.

It's a pity that even at the semi-professional level, it's still far from the level of a second-level master.

Even if the original painting is right in front of him, Gu Weijing can't restore the original color feeling with the palette.

Although when repairing the murals before, Gu Weijing's understanding of the pigments of traditional Chinese paintings in "Notes of Mojie" can make Gu Weijing understand a lot.

But apart from the difference in color between Chinese painting and oil painting, the color palette of Impressionist oil painting is the most complicated type of oil painting.

Impressionist painters would choose the appropriate color as the tone of the basic color. They expressed a feeling when they adjusted the color, and they did not completely adjust the color on the palette, and changed it as they used it.

The background color of this painting is dark brown, and Gu Wei arranged several kinds of black and purple on the palette after deliberation.

He didn't feel right. Compared with the dark but not gloomy ingenious color control of the original painting, it seemed too rigid and rigid.

　Keep going day by day.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)