The Versatile Master Artist

A gust of wind blew past, rippling the surface of the water.

Gu Weijing took out two small wooden boxes from his backpack and opened them on the picnic table set up by Miss Sakai’s bodyguards.

The wooden boxes were the size between a girl’s blush compact and a mooncake box, a kind of miniature box.

One side was blue-green, the other rosy red, resembling two shimmering sapphire and ruby seals under the sunlight.

The blue side was flower cyan, the red side was rouge.

The complexity of Chinese painting pigments is no less than that of oil painting pigments, but each independent floral theme only uses a few single colors.

Gu Weijing and Koizumi Katsuko came to the botanical garden to gather inspiration with the specific goal of sketching wisteria flowers on site.

Painting wisteria primarily requires the use of flower cyan and rouge.

Additionally, they needed titanium white and leaf green to control the concentration of color, and a small piece of soot ink made from tung oil smoke.

All the pigments could be carried away in a small backpack, which was very convenient.

Gu Weijing took out a plastic file rack from his backpack.

It was difficult to carry rolls of mature rice paper when going out for inspiration.

He was practicing painting small, delicate petals, unlike Gu Tongxiang in the past, who had to consider calling out to sell paintings when sketching in the park.

Therefore, he cut all the rice paper into rectangular sheets of one square foot at home last night.

Gu Weijing pressed the paper on the table and looked around.

“I must paint something worthwhile today,” he said to himself.

They were in a botanical garden originally called the Royal Botanical Garden, covering 177 hectares.

Despite the name “Royal,” it had nothing to do with the feudal Konbaung Dynasty; it referred to King Edward VII’s “leisure garden” in the Far East and the former summer retreat for the governor and senior civil servants of the Sun Never Sets Empire.

In terms of architectural design, it was even a sister garden to the famous Royal Botanic Garden in the western suburbs of London, a genuinely purebred English garden.

The gardens built by John Bull were mostly monotonous.

The British had an eternal love embedded in their genes for all sorts of fountains and various flowerbeds.

Having seen one.

Thereafter, whether entering the garden outside the manor of a retired lord or a botanical garden thousands of miles away in a foreign land, there was always a sense of déjà vu.

Patterned flowerbeds, English-style corridors, central fountains, often accompanied by lakes and Gothic Revival sculptures.

These elements were arranged in various combinations.

They could almost summarize 99% of the design elements.

Gu Weijing and his group set up an inflatable tent on the lawn by the lake, next to a damaged fountain sculpture of a woodland fairy missing a head.

The bodyguard made use of a folding bucket to fetch a bucket of lake water from the lakeside.

Gu Weijing moistened his brush in the water, mixed flower cyan and rouge, and slowly used the center brushstroke to pursue the ideas in his mind on the paper, starting from the root of the flower.

For some formulas of large white powder or ochre colors, to better dissolve and adhere to the paper, a suitable amount of alum was needed when dipping the paint.

Flavonoids and traditional rouge were water-soluble pigments extracted from plant roots and freshly pressed red and blue flowers leaves.

With this lively water, painting was possible.

First, touch up the brightest few petals with paint, then as the tip of the brush’s color fades, sketch out the budding buds, then switch to a small line-drawing pen to sketch the leaf veins and flower roots.

When painting leaf veins.

Remember the formula taught by Professor Lin Tao, “Center brushstroke tender green, the brush brings a three-point arc gesture,” so the completed leaf veins can be vibrant yet strong, expressing the feeling of petals growing on branches, swaying with the wind.

Finally, switch back to a small brush, use rouge mixed with medium ink to touch up the calyx.

With each step of this complete process, a string of wisteria flowers was considered officially completed.

Time ticked away second by second.

Purple little flowers gradually spread over the paper in front of Gu Weijing.

“Hiss.”

Gu Weijing wiped the slight sweat brought out by the sun on his forehead with his sleeve.

[Title: “Wisteria”]

[Chinese Painting Techniques: Level 4 Tier One Professional (4902/5000)]

[Emotions: Simple Works]

He shook his head slightly disappointed; the painting wasn’t a total failure, as the techniques for wisteria weren’t complex. With Professor Lin Tao’s guidance, mastering the key points wasn’t hard.

However, the biggest difference between paintings and photographs is.

A photograph will always resemble.

But a painting must not only resemble, it must carry the emotions imbued by the painter, to appear vivid on paper.

Tang Ning’s “Hundred Flowers Painting,” the most impressive part is that thirty-six types of flowers bloom on one branch, showcasing thirty-six different floral languages, thirty-six different temperaments.

Their pride has a reason.

This spectacle of varied and flamboyant array.

Indeed, it is much more difficult than arranging thousands of color points in gradients on the paper, depicting a dazzling rose, a superficial painting method.

Even if he was merely copying.

What Gu Weijing reproduced was only the surface, not the soul.

Lady Tang Ning’s ability to artistically capture the spirit of landscapes in Chinese paintings, effortlessly adapting and changing, was no easier than achieving Tier One Grandmaster level in painting techniques at twenty.

The greatest challenge Gu Weijing faced was this.

If his mastery of wisteria stayed at this surface level of “Simple Works,” unable to deeply grasp the nuanced emotional state.