"Tickets? A ticket to a higher artistic technique. ”

Gu Weijing studied the three picture frames on the wall, trying to see more mysteries about painting from them.

Even if they are several paintings that have not really been finished.

Still seeing.

Every stroke of the sketch teacher is very careful.

A painting that I want to paint with all my heart and a casual work after dinner.

The artistic interest of the game may not be able to distinguish between high and low.

But it's like a camellia flower arrangement in a crystal vase that has been carefully cut by a housewife and arranged in a crystal vase, and a wild rose in the grass on the side of the tree-lined path.

In terms of the style of the picture, it is easy to see the difference at a glance by the observer who is familiar with the other party.

The three paintings on the wall, to be precise...... Every watercolor work that Gu Weijing sees hanging on the wall in this studio is the former.

Like many German watercolourists of his generation, Professor Wattel was influenced by the photorealist style of painting during his formative years.

It is a line of painting that runs counter to the wave of minimalist and abstract art.

There is no limit to the complexity of the brushwork, and there is no limit to the accuracy of the picture.

They like to use extremely fine brushwork to create the smallest details of their paintings.

The painter hopes to use the brush in his hand to challenge the imaging limits of modern glass lenses and digital optical CMOS, and transfer the scenes in a photo to the canvas in front of him through the medium of the creator.

Constantly close to the imaging capture effect of the photo, constantly restored, constantly approaching, and finally reaching the ultimate expression of the picture from the photo, but beyond the fineness of the photo and the depth of thought.

Gu Weijing looked at the works on the wall for a moment, and he could see how desperate and hard Mr. Wattle was running towards this goal.

The other party is meticulously carving every detail on the watercolor paper.

The uneven brownish-grey tiles on the façade of the Pergamon Museum, the Balloco-style curved dome of the Balloco style resembling an upside-down bronze bell, the majestic metal sculpture of Friedrich Wilhelm IV in front of the Old Chinese Painting Gallery in the sunlight and the long shadow drawn from the sculpture.

Even the ripples on the surface of the Spree River under the gray-white covered bridge that Gu Weijing had just copied were all hooked little by little by a very fine mink brush.

It's clearer than the waves of the river in the photo on the table next to me.

There is no need to disassemble calligraphy and painting appraisal.

Gu Weijing could easily imagine in his mind that Professor Wattel's sleeves were rolled up high, revealing his pale arms with slightly thick body hair, and he was extremely careful to use a small watercolor pen to repeatedly sketch and retouch on the drawing board little by little, as if a German watchmaker was using tiny tweezers to repair a delicate and complex watch movement.

Maybe.

The sketch teacher draws for a while, and then takes out the photo from the photo frame next to him, puts it in front of the drawing board and frowns and compares it repeatedly.

If Professor Wattle is right, he painted this sparkling landscape photograph for ten years.

This lonely and boring scene must have appeared again and again in the suite of this office for more than 3,000 days and nights.

Sunrise and sunset.

Only the alarm clock in the workplace is ticking.

"Surprised, I destroyed most of the works after painting, and the ones hanging here are only a small part of the best ones I think."

Wattel was still staring at the frames on the wall.

He didn't look back.

But it seems that there are already too many people with expressions similar to Gu Weijing, and he is completely aware of the consternation in Gu Weijing's heart at this moment.

"Oh my God, after 10 years of painting, it's all about this theme, how many Museum Islands have you painted in total? Sir, you ......"

Doesn't it feel boring?

Gu Weijing couldn't help but sigh with emotion, and at the same time he was also very puzzled.

There is no shortage of certain painters in the history of art who like to paint a particular subject over and over again.

They may see this behavior as an anchor to test the progress of their painting skills, or they may simply have a preference for a certain landscape, or simply because the sales of this kind of painting are relatively good, and there are more orders from painting furniture dealers and customers.

The representative is that when Dali is short of money to spend, he is used to drawing sketches and illustrations for world famous books to make quick money.

For the same illustration of "Don Quixote Challenges the Windmill", Marquis Dalí painted 192 of them. Then I found that this thing was selling really well, and it was just the right thing to eat, so I worked with the printing house to make more than 30,000 copies and sell signed prints.

Van Gogh also painted 11 sunflowers.

Among the world's famous painters, the most famous artist who persistently delves into a single painting theme.

It should still be Monet.

In the last third of his career, from 1899 until mid-1926, when he had become a millionaire by selling paintings, Monet bought a large mansion in a Japanese garden that his family had built.

I shut myself up in the house almost all day long, and I pondered the plants floating in the pond from beginning to night.

It is also known as the "water lily".

Monet completed about 300 small paintings of water lilies, and on average, one water lily was completed every little over a month. It can be regarded as a model of the art world's love for a certain scenery to the extreme.

Zhou Dunyi, who wrote "Ai Lian Said" in the Northern Song Dynasty, if he knew that 800 years later, there was a French child who liked lotus flowers to the point of being so crazy.

I will definitely see each other and hate to be a confidant.

Although Monet's 300 water lilies painted for 27 years may sound exaggerated, in fact, every picture called "Water Lilies" is different.

Each one is a new work, a new attempt.

His water lily paintings can also be divided into the "Water Lilies" series, the "Water Lilies Under the Willows" series, and the "Nihonbashi" series in the general direction.

In the special issue of the 100th anniversary of Monet's birth published by Oil Painting magazine in the last century, the cover sentence began with a comment - "This Impressionist master did not spend thirty years on a single plant, he was not trying to grasp the growth and withering of a certain plant and tree, but trying to grasp the whole spring. As it turned out, he did, and this is the symphony of spring he dedicated to the world. Monet left the spring flowers of the Normandy estate (note) forever in the world. 】

(Note: The name of Monet's Oriental Garden.) ）

The painter is just working under the same name, creating wantonly.

Even if you've been painting for 27 years, it's not easy to get tired of it.

However, every painting hanging in Professor Wattel's office is completely created in the same mold, in the same painting idea.

This teacher is a genuine painting, and he has been painted countless times.

Selling paintings?

Unless the Dulwich professor is still secretly selling cheap watercolor paintings for a dozen dollars a part-time job online, it has to be the kind of small shop that sells well.

Otherwise, it's really not that Gu Weijing has a system, so he looks down on this teacher who has taught him for many years.

IMHO.

Even with the current signature IP of "Detective Cat", such a large number of single works can be sold in the gallery, even if the painting technique is one or two levels higher than Wattel.

If you don't do it well, the value that is not easy to hit will still collapse.

Again.

If you simply want to sell paintings to make money, in the absence of popularity, photorealistic painting is really cost-effective.

The name Wattle is known to very few people except Dulwich College.

A watercolor painting as delicate as a photograph can sell for 20%~30% more than an ordinary watercolor landscape painting at most, and each one can sell for 200 euros, which is really thankful.

The amount of energy and effort required to draw is more than twice as much.

Not necessarily.

Practicing drawing?

In order to participate in the Singapore Biennale, Gu Weijing's "Good Luck Orphanage in Yangon" has also been painted more than a dozen times, and he doesn't feel anything.

This amount of practice is not enough to find boring.

Coupled with the rapid improvement of painting skills, it also dilutes the boredom of repetitive mechanical exercises, and there is a cute soft girl like Katsuko Sakai in the studio.

For now, at least, he can still feel the joy of practicing.

But what if you turn a dozen into a hundred, two hundred, hundred?

What if the unit of time was extended to 10 years?

What if the painting technique is like Professor Wattle, and the bottleneck stuck in the first level of the profession cannot be improved?

Gu Weijing considers himself to be a person with a very upright and serious attitude towards artistic creation.

But when he thinks about this kind of thing, he will also feel ...... I probably wanted to vomit from the moment I saw the photos of Museum Island.

In the evaluation of the systematic emotional table, it is not only the seriousness and hard work that are required to work hard, but also the deep understanding and enough moving artistic depth of the unity of the painter himself and the soul of the works and the painting.

Pure seriousness, the highest evaluation can only touch the level of "simple work".

But Gu Weijing has to admit,

His high school teacher's attitude towards this landscape painting has also reached the meaning of life.

Professor Wattle, a middle-aged teacher who likes to drink beer and watch football, seems to have a normal mind, not a paranoid madman like Van Gogh who is full of artistic temperament.

So......

What is it that supports the teacher around him, year after year, day after day, pouring all his heart and soul into this small photo?

What is the magic of this ordinary photo, like a magnet, that attracts him and is unwilling to let go?

"A thousand?"

"What?"

"I haven't counted exactly, but I think I'm sure I've made a thousand of these watercolors." Wattle held out a finger.

"Fifteen hundred, maybe more."

Gu Weijing took a light breath.

Watercolors of the same size take much shorter time than oil paintings, and many boutique gallery contractors only put a few watercolors on the market a year, which is specially to control the relationship between supply and demand.

It doesn't matter if it's a thousand or fifteen hundred.

I've been practicing for ten years, and it's normal to have a good number.

However, if it is substituted into the daily life of Mr. Wattel, it still seems terrifying.

It also seems cruel.

Ten years is enough time to bring about earth-shaking changes in ordinary things.

The so-called 10,000 hours became the law of the master.

Ten years, with a plan, you can make up several 10,000 hours.

Ten years to practice running a marathon, ordinary people can run in less than 3 hours.

You can spend 10 years practicing art.

The German uncle next to him is still stuck on the bottleneck of the first level of his profession and can't move in.

In other words.

Wattle's drawings and watercolors, as well as his grandfather Gu Tongxiang's Chinese paintings, have all been practiced for tens of thousands of hours, but the boundary between Lv.4 and Lv.5 is not to run in a marathon for 3 hours, but to run in 2 hours and 30 minutes.

At this level, the marginal effect of practice is already obvious, and it is no longer a matter of blindly piling up time in the studio and treadmill.

It must be conceived with sufficient perception and opportunity.

"Gu, it's actually not as boring as you think. When I was in school, the boys at school who could spell the Rubik's Cube were cool. ”

"And painting a photorealist work is like putting together a Rubik's Cube."

"After fighting the third order, there is still the fourth order, and I am familiar with the fourth order and the fifth order. Spend $2,000 on a full-frame camera, press the shutter and you'll get a digital photo with a density of 20 to 30 million pixels. And a basic 22x30-inch sketch is not bad with a total of 1,000 strokes. A difference of 1 in 10,000 to achieve the same, or even better, visual effect. It's a lot of fun. ”

"I am constantly thinking about how to put together the best and most realistic picture effect under the limit of the brushstrokes that can be accommodated on the drawing paper. It's like putting together a never-ending piece of ingenious magic. All right...... Let's be honest, at the end of the day, it's pretty boring. ”

Professor Wattle smiled frankly.

"Uh...... If it were just a skill, I probably wouldn't have spent ten years on the same painting, and I would have let go of this obsession and go to work every day, holding cold beer and ball games in my spare time. After all, I don't have much of a noble artistic pursuit. ”

"Teaching at Dulwich College campuses in remote countries, plus a stipend. The salary is no lower than that of an associate professor at the Academy of Fine Arts of some universities. Over the years, I have also saved a small amount of money. ”

"Three years ago, I seriously considered quitting my job and buying a small house by the sea in Bangkok, where the climate is warm, it is a very prosperous metropolis, but the consumption is relatively low, and everyone says that it is a cost-effective place to retire. I love the sun, the sea breeze and the surf. When he is not free, he sets up a drawing board on the beach to paint and act as a painter. I've never been a real painter in my life, and it's not hard to pretend to be an artist by the beach when I'm old. Maybe...... There would also be a swimsuit girl who asked me to paint a picture for her or something. There will always be such classic shots in literary films made by French directors. ”

The sketch teacher pursed the corners of her mouth and imagined a beautiful retirement life.

"When painting really changed from work to pastime, I let go of art, and art let go of me. At that time, there is a high probability that you will find the pure joy of painting when you were a child. ”

"But I can't."

"When I say glittering tickets, I'm not an artistic rhetoric. It's 'bling' in the real sense, have you ever heard of the bet of the century between President Miller of KICH and Mr. Elena Sr.? ”

(End of chapter)