Chapter 594 - 273: Sketch Guidance

"Yeah, I did it."

Koizumi Katsuko put down the charcoal stick, took Gu Weijing’s hand, and turned her head to look at the sketch on the canvas.

The level of sketching technique is a realm that countless ordinary painters spend their lives pursuing but never attain.

For Miss Sakai, it’s just a small starting point in her career, like the first little hill climbed in life.

Many, many years ago.

Koizumi Katsuko had the courage to proclaim in the bustling art gallery to the world’s most famous art masters that one day she would become a greater and more renowned artist than Takashi Murakami.

Koizumi Katsuko never doubted that one day she would overcome the artistic bottleneck that troubled her.

The highest peaks in the art world, no matter how high the mountains or deep the snow, she would eventually step up, until the end of the sky.

Even Lian Shengzi herself didn’t expect the day to come so quickly.

On this spring afternoon at seventeen, when she decided to rush towards the Singapore Art Biennale.

Because of the boy beside her, everything happened just right.

Koizumi Katsuko subtly stood on tiptoe and gently rested her head on Gu Weijing’s shoulder.

"Gu Weijing?"

"Hmm?"

"We could adopt a cat together in the future. Ah Wang looks very cute, I wonder if she’d look prettier with a kitty bow tie headband."

Koizumi Katsuko initially wanted to talk about sketching, art, and the competition and challenges in the upcoming exhibition.

But the words lost their appeal once they reached her lips.

The girl slightly squinted her eyes.

What will come will come, but now she just wants to enjoy the gentle breeze blowing over her cheek on this tranquil spring day.

Life truly is beautiful.

"Ah Wang? She’s a bit fierce. By the way, Old Wu is very pained by your pampering of his cat. He’s eyeing the cheese cat canned food I took over, wishing he could snack on it himself."

Gu Weijing recalled an amusing story.

Last time the elderly neighbor scanned the canned cat food with his phone, discovering it sold on Amazon for 116 dollars a can, his eyes nearly popped out.

Honestly.

Ah Wang’s food expenses now exceed the average monthly salary of ordinary people in this country and she’s eating better than 90% of the people here.

If this continues.

The day when Ah Wang and her owner fight over canned food is not far off.

"I’ll buy whatever the old man wants, so he doesn’t eat Ah Wang’s food, alright?" Koizumi Katsuko just pursed her lips, playfully smiled.

Gu Weijing and Koizumi Katsuko teased each other a bit. During the chat, his gaze occasionally drifted to the sketch on Shengzi’s board.

"Hi, what are you thinking about?"

Koizumi Katsuko noticed Gu Weijing’s hesitant expression, adjusted her hair, and took the initiative to ask.

"I have a small suggestion." Gu Weijing walked up to the drawing board, "If this is your draft for the exhibition piece, I was thinking, maybe you could..."

He reached out and pinched off a small piece of oat bread from the table.

Oat bread isn’t a snack for painting, but part of the tools.

On an oil canvas, it’s hard to erase the sketch marks with an ordinary eraser; baked bread crust filled with unique fiber texture is excellent for absorbing charcoal powder.

Since the era of Da Vinci’s painting.

Painters and cartographers have always kept a piece of bread handy to modify their drafts.

This tradition has been carried on to this day.

In terms of effect, soft bread crumbs and charcoal powder are nearly an ideal match, with an absorption capacity for black powder that PVC rubber erasers cannot replace.

Sometimes Gu Weijing uses oil painting cloth erasers from brands like Faber-Castell instead of bread for drawing.

Not because the effect is better, but completely for cost considerations.

An industrial rubber eraser costs only a few US dollars, whereas using soft bread to draw over the years is actually quite extravagant from the medieval times to now.

Koizumi Katsuko’s painting style is very classical and willful.

She still, like the great painters from hundreds of years ago, always has several pieces of oat bread ready by her easel.

"Do you want to modify my sketch? Do you have any better suggestions?"

Koizumi Katsuko asked.

It’s not out of arrogance but because she’s quite satisfied with her draft.

"Nothing major, just adjusting some line proportions slightly, might be better."

Gu Weijing saw Koizumi Katsuko’s eyes signaling that he could directly work on the canvas.

Thus, he carefully cleaned some lines and added some with a charcoal pencil.

Given Gu Weijing’s current perspective, the girl’s composition and painting ideas have no issues.

Both lively and interesting, yet containing Zen-like meaning.

So much better than his original creative concept for "Sunshine Orphanage" before Boss Chen gave guidance.

Only the sketch lines contained traces of slight disharmony.

Technically, both individuals have the same LV.5 sketching level, their abilities to structure lines about the same, with Koizumi Katsuko being more advantageous in artistic accumulation and vision.

However, Gu Weijing possesses two utterly unreasonable Knowledge Cards, "Human Anatomy" and "Pet Mind Reading Skill."