The Versatile Master Artist

Gu Weijing grasped the still spinning pencil on the table.

Dongxia has the Eight Major Art Institutes, and Japan has the Five Beauty Schools of Kanto.

These prestigious art academies, whether through joint exams or independent tests, love to evaluate students’ pencil skills with still life sketches.

Even Musashino Art University, a famous school in Asia, over the past decade, has used the entrance exams for oil painting, sculpture, industrial design, and architectural design departments to test the painting skills of countless examinees by giving them a few pencils and a sheet of B3 drawing paper.

The teacher places a few pots of daffodils or other complex still life on the table, requiring the applicants to draw them within a limited time.

They assess whether these students have the qualifications to be admitted based on the completion of their sketch works.

This demonstrates the importance of sketching in modern art education.

On the other hand, it shows that basic sketching skills cannot deceive anyone.

Each person is unique, and each student has a different level.

The quality of expression easily reveals a student’s pencil skill between simplistic color blocks and intersecting lines.

The skill in line work and shaping is apparent in how the pencil moves.

When viewers see the proportions, distortion, form, color, or texture changes rendered by a pencil on paper, they instantly recognize which artworks are outstanding and which are mediocre.

In the hearts of art lovers, sketching doesn’t need scores from examiners.

The paper has already provided the answer between beauty and ugliness.

Good or bad,

it’s evident at a glance.

"My current lighting and shading, positioning, and forming seem to have become more precise than before," Gu Weijing carefully felt the new changes brought by his improved technique with the muscles in his fingers.

Both oil painting and sketching generally use proportional relationships and light-dark contrast to depict the real world.

However, in detail, the emphasis of each technique differs.

Oil painting focuses more on emotional expression between brushstrokes and color.

Sketching has no pigments, only lines and color blocks, only the contrast of black, white, and gray.

In the world of sketching, the sun is not orange-red, the sky is not blue, the lake is not emerald green; everything depends only on subtle changes in light and shadow.

To achieve this, the use of sketch pencils requires more precision than oil painting brushes, with more perfect positioning and more precise brushwork intensity.

Gu Weijing looked up at the teacher on the podium and casually attempted a figure sketch on the desk.

It didn’t really count as a sketch; it was merely a basic line drawing of a person’s eyes and eyebrows.

Yet, Gu Weijing captured the essential characteristics of the figure.

Slightly messy, flying hair, a square face with well-developed chewing muscles and a classic Germanic sharp nose, plus a few lines at the corner of the eyes spreading from a focal point, ending in parallel crow’s feet.

With just a few minutes and simple line relationships, the entire image of Professor Walter gesticulating on the podium emerged vividly before him.

The desk was not a good drawing surface.

Made from pressed wood laminate, the surface was painted with waterproof varnish, smooth and without any adhesion for pencil graphite.

Not only was the friction so low that his pencil tip felt uncontrolled like ice skate blades, trying to use pen strokes to construct tonal relationships was utterly futile.

However,

Gu Weijing’s drawing was remarkably accurate.

His brushstrokes were as light as a martial arts expert with lightweight skills, treading lightly through snow in winter, leaving shallow yet sufficiently clear pencil marks on the desk.

There was no sense of awkwardness or stagnation in the transitions and turns.

"This is the sketching level of a Tier Two professional. Among professional painters, it counts as achieving mastery and even being considered a ’master’ in a small place."

Gu Weijing glanced at Professor Walter’s portrait on the desk, then looked at Professor Walter in person on the podium, and then at the classic quick sketch profile of "Theodore Roosevelt" that the teacher had casually drawn on the right side of the blackboard during a previous class.

Gu Weijing nodded in satisfaction and used the edge of his palm to wipe away the doodle on the desk.

"Professor Walter, now I’m the best at sketching in this classroom," he thought smugly.

While Gu Weijing contemplated the improvements in his sketching technique for a few minutes,

Professor Walter had finished teaching today’s material from the podium.

As usual, the professor handed out grid paper he had printed for each student to practice pencil detailing as a classroom assignment.

When Gu Weijing received the grid sketch paper passed from the front row, he was in no rush to start drawing.

He stared at the sketch paper in front of him for a few seconds, and a new idea popped into his head.

"Snap!"

Gu Weijing snapped his fingers lightly.

...

Meanwhile,

in the third floor of the East Wing of the Fitz Building Art Classroom, Mrs. Cruz’s advanced class.

The advantage of small class teaching is that Mrs. Sakai hasn’t set a specific curriculum or teaching plan, since there are only a few students anyway.

She turned this art classroom into a small studio, allowing students to complete their own portfolios.

Mrs. Sakai and her assistant moved around the classroom, offering creation guidance and modification suggestions based on each student’s situation.

"Mr. Xiaosong, oh right, come over here, I have something to discuss with you."

Mrs. Sakai walked briskly among the students, glancing left and right for a moment before spotting her target.

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