Gu Weijing looked at the sky.

Feeling that today's materials were almost collected, he moved the position of the drawing board in the courtyard, fixed a piece of uppercase sketch paper, and began to design the draft of the works for the exhibition.

Oil painting artists have different habits when painting.

Some people prefer the rigorous and cumbersome process of drawing a small sketch of 5:1 or 8:1 on sketch paper or linen canvas, and then enlarging it and copying it on a formal canvas to determine the overall line shape.

Then, according to this modeling, the preliminary base map and the preliminary pigment color relationship are drawn, and finally the formal painting is made.

There are also some bold and chic painters, who will not even play the line modeling, and just use a paintbrush dipped in oil or acrylic to start painting on the canvas.

There is no superiority between the two options.

It is more determined by personal usage habits and genres of painting.

According to the standard of works participating in the Lion City Art Exhibition, professional painters can be considered as beginners. Gu Weijing didn't dare to hold it up, but he still hoped to conceive it little by little in the most basic and simple way.

He gazed at the courtyard of the old church for a moment, and with a pencil he set three datum points on the paper, one up, two down, and three datum points, forming a triangle on the draft.

triangular composition,

This is a very common way of composition in oil paintings, where the high point of the main body and the border of the two low points form a pyramid-like triangle.

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, and Géricault's Raft of the Medusa are all compositions.

Gu Weijing's previous painting of "Good Luck Orphanage under the Sun" was simply an attempt to experiment with painting, and there was not so much attention to it.

And if you want to participate in an art exhibition, you have to put some thought into the composition.

He intends to use the dilapidated but still tall statue of the Virgin in the courtyard of the church as the background of the picture and the apex of the triangular composition.

At the lower points on the left and right are children playing in the yard.

The transition between the vertices and the bottom corners of the triangle is filled with taller adult volunteers.

There are about seven or eight main characters, including two or three adult volunteers and five or six children.

"The space here is the statue of the Virgin, the light coming from the top of the statue, and the right side is the big locust tree...... Well, the position on the left is the image of Uncle Alai, the janitor sitting on the maza, washing Jasmine's hair, both in terms of character relationship and height ratio, which is very appropriate. ”

Gu Weijing simply sketched the side face of the burly janitor on the sketch paper, and the sketch only needed to draw a rough outline.

He drew for twenty minutes, and the blank sheet of paper was filled with lines of various proportions.

"Triangular composition, well, the picture is very solid." Someone said in a surprised voice.

If you paint outside, you will inevitably be watched.

However, there are many people who watch the excitement, but few people who can have a professional artistic vision.

can say his composition ideas in one sentence, which makes Gu Weijing can't help but look sideways slightly.

I don't know when, there is a group of more people.

The leader was a middle-aged gentleman who looked to be about forty years old, wearing a light palm-colored stand-up collar jacket, polite and elegant.

He appears to be the leader who came to inspect the orphanage, followed by a secretary with a briefcase and gold-rimmed glasses, and a government official in the shirt and uniform of a high-ranking police officer.

At the back of the crowd, the female director of the orphanage cautiously followed.

The look is reserved and flattering.

"Xiao Gu. This is Chen Linsheng, Mr. Chen. He took over as chairman of the Myanmar Charity Chamber of Commerce, which he took over last year, and is an investor in the largest joint venture with Toyota in Yangon's Layada district. ”

The female dean turned her head and introduced to the middle-aged man: "Xiao Gu is our volunteer here, a very good young man who learns to paint. ”

"Mr. Chen knows how to draw?"

Gu Weijing asked, and he vaguely had a vague impression of this name that often appeared in Yangon newspapers in the past two years.

"I studied, I thought about being an artist when I was young, but unfortunately Southeast Asia at that time was a puddle of alkaline soil, and there was no environment to be an artist, but I made a name for myself in business."

The entrepreneur seems to be caught up in emotion.

"I'm sorry, uncle, I want to paint quietly now." Gu Weijing nodded and said hello.

It is true that Mr. Chen is a big entrepreneur, but he has no desire for the other party, so he has no intention of making friends and currying favor.

He stopped talking to the other person, lowered his head and continued to study the composition of the picture on paper.

Gu Weijing always feels that the current structural design is not perfect.

The secretary with the briefcase looked unhappy.

The political and business relations in Myanmar are complicated, but doing business has reached the point of Boss Chen, and the underworld and white roads have to be honestly held, and a little money can be exposed casually in the cracks of his hands, which can set off great changes in the economy of a region.

This young man is too ignorant.

"Where did this student come from? What about his parents. The secretary frowned and looked at the dean beside her.

"Ah...... Xiao Gu is a good child, but his personality is quieter, don't be surprised. The dean helped cover up some worries.

This pedestrian is coming from a big way.

Hades is better than a little ghost, and he doesn't need anything to say from this Boss Chen, just if his secretary is unhappy, it is enough for ordinary families to drink a pot.

"Okay, okay, what to worry about with children, this is the nature of an artist. Like us, falling into the eyes of money, that cleverness and intelligence have long been worn away by the smell of copper. ”

Mr. Chen is not surprised, but admires Gu Weijing's personality.

He looked Gu Weijing up and down, and looked at the school emblem on his clothes.

"It's a student of Dulwich, and I even had dinner with your principal." Mr. Chen recognized the best art secondary school in Yangon, turned his head to look at the police inspector beside him, "Brother, I remember that your daughter is also learning to paint at Dulwich, right?" ”

The police officer was obviously stunned for a moment, a smile appeared on his serious face, and he nodded slightly: "Yes, Mr. Chen is right, he is indeed studying at Dulwich." ”

He turned his head to look at the boy in front of the easel, and thought for a moment: "Xiao Gu, are you ...... Gu Weijing? ”

"Huh? Uncle, who are you? ”

Gu Weijing was puzzled, he didn't expect to meet someone who knew him here.

"Coco is my daughter."

The police officer stared at Gu Weijing with a scrutinizing gaze, "She mentioned Ling a few times at home. ”

"Oh, so you're the ...... that Cocole"

Gu Weijing stopped his mouth in time, so that he could subconsciously spit out the "feudal old-fashioned" evaluation that Kou Kou often hung on his lips.

"It's all family...... Hey? ”

Seeing Gu Weijing seemed to remind him of his time when he was studying art in his youth, and Mr. Chen was very interested in him.

He stood beside Gu Weijing and looked at the other party's easel for a moment, his eyes fell on the folder that was unfolded on the side, and he sighed softly.

The observant secretary has picked up the folder for the boss.

Mr. Chen flipped through a few pages of pen drawings sandwiched in them, and his expression became much more serious: "Amazing, the level of young people now is really amazing." ”

"How big is it?" Koukou's father leaned in curiously.

High-end wealthy businessmen like to play art, which has been a common norm in any country throughout the ages.

Coco's father knows better that Chen Shenglin is different from those nouveau riche who take the collection home just to be elegant.

A true connoisseur.

He even has his own small private art museum in Europe, which has a collection of famous paintings ranging from millions to tens of millions of dollars.

There is no doubt about the artistic vision.

This is the case in Southeast Asia such as Myanmar, Thailand, and Malaysia, as well as in many African countries.

The poor are extremely poor, and the rich are richer than they think. Such a big entrepreneur must be curryed favor with the Yangon government from top to bottom.

He has accompanied Boss Chen for so long to invest, and it is rare to see the other party show such an interested attitude towards a person.

"At this age, I must have worked very hard with my brush, and my painting method combines the characteristics of Dongxia white drawing and European sketching, and my ambition is not small, and my painting is better."

Chen Shenglin rubbed his chin and commented: "What's even more rare is that a few of these paintings are spiritual. ”

"There is a god?"

Coco's father nodded as if he didn't understand: "Don't say it, there are indeed a few that look like they are alive." ”

"It's good to see such talented young people, I always feel old. But the lad...... Your sketch is good, and the draft of this large painting can be said. ”

Chen Shenglin didn't explain too much, but raised his head and stared at the draft in Gu Wei's hand.

"How?"

Gu Weijing thought for a moment and asked.

He also found that Mr. Chen next to him was indeed an expert.

Not only can the other party see that his pen sketches are a combination of white drawing and sketching.

What's even more rare is that I can say the essence of my own "heart-feeling" works. Ordinary people can be like Koukou's father, who simply thinks she is beautiful, but she can't say why.

"It's a bit dull and lacking in energy."

Mr. Chen commented as a veteran art collector.

"This is really the downside of the triangular composition method." In the face of the problems pointed out by the other party, Gu Weijing honestly admitted.

In physics, triangles are the most stable figures.

The same theory is also applied in the visual arts, and there is hardly a mistake in using the triangular composition of the oil painting to make the picture even and stable.

But moderation often means that all aspects are not brilliant enough.

If the picture is too stable, the picture will lose its dynamism and vitality, and it will look very old-fashioned.

Therefore, this composition method is also more used in portraits of people.

"Do you have any good insights?"

"Move the statue of Our Lady a little to the right, form a diagonal line with the big locust tree on the left and high on the right, and turn the regular triangle into an oblique triangle, and the picture will be much more vivid."

Mr. Chen pondered: "Young man, I read your draft annotations, and the idea of using the statue of the Virgin as the center point and the direction of the light is influenced by religious paintings. I would venture to ask, are you a believer? ”

"I was influenced by religious paintings, but I am not a Christian."

Gu Weijing shook his head.

Myanmar is a Buddhist country, with more than 90% of the total population being Buddhists.

The Gu family still maintains the tradition of ancestor sacrifice of the clan of the Eastern Xia culture, and there is no specific religious belief other than that.

Gu Weijing is not a Buddhist, nor does he believe in Catholicism or Protestantism.

But people are right, the composition of the picture designed by Gu Weijing was indeed influenced by heavy religious paintings.

In the field of art, religious painting has always occupied half of the field of serious painting such as oil painting.

Needless to say, in the pre-Renaissance tempera era, there was almost no third type of painting except for aristocratic portraits, which were religious paintings.

Probably until the twentieth century, religious painting was a very mainstream way of painting.

For example, the pre-Raphaelite school of painting, which was flourishing for a time, emphasized the pursuit of soul purity, and many painters specialized in painting religious morality.

The statue of the Virgin is a very representative symbol.

A very classic way of framing an oil painting is that a beam of light from the window shines from the statue of the Virgin Mary placed next to the bed in the bedroom.

It is reflected on the faces of mistresses, prostitutes, gamblers, robbers, and other similar characters who are kept by the children of rich families.

So she (he) suddenly woke up to his moral depravity in the holy light, burst into tears, and hurriedly prayed.

Gu Weijing's composition was not originally intended to promote the universal concept of God loving the world and other European and American people.

He has just seen too many works like this, and he has formed enough thinking inertia.

At this time, the composition of the scene in front of me contains the classic oil painting elements of the image of the Virgin, which is used as a conditioned reflex of seeing a mathematical formula.

"It's old-fashioned, and it's too banal. There is no novelty, and the composition has no soul of its own. It's just an imitation of European and American painters. ”

Mr. Chen glanced at Gu Weijing's draft and said lightly.

"If I were a collector, I wouldn't pay for this kind of craftsmanship. You can't deny your origins, young man, even if you can't wait to turn yourself into a European, the European and American art circles will not accept you. ”

It's a bit ugly to say.

Gu Weijing was not angry at all.

Mr. Chan was not hostile, he was simply stating the facts.

"Is there anything you can teach me?" In the face of people who really have a high level of artistic quality, Gu Weijing has always been very respectful.

The jury of the Singapore Fine Art Exhibition also includes many veteran collectors from all over the world.

What Mr. Chan thinks, and it is likely to be what they think.

"Light, if I were you......"

Collector Chen Shenglin looked at the picture and clicked on the sketch paper, "If I were you, I would like to see the light of the picture coming from the opposite direction of the statue of the Virgin on the right." The light and dark tones are completely reversed, so that the statue of the Virgin is completely hidden in the shadows. ”

"So?"

Gu Weijing pondered.

Playing with color in this way, it is difficult to be burned at the stake in the Middle Ages, but modern art is generally quite inclusive.

There are some that are more "rebellious and cynical" than this kind of artistic creativity.

As long as it's not a place with a very conservative consciousness spectrum, there's not much risk of political correctness at the Singapore Art Fair.

But wouldn't it be too bold to do so in pursuit of a novel composition?

"Young man, have you ever thought about what Rangoon is like in the eyes of foreigners?" Mr. Chan seemed to be lost in thought.

(End of chapter)