Please ask the dream.

Chapter 169 Learning to paint without first drawing an egg is like learning to cook without learning how to make fried rice with eggs
Although it sounds a bit strange, for the freehand painting technique, complex things are easier to draw than simple things. The more complex it is, the more space you have to highlight the shades, lightness and heaviness, and to depict the brush strokes and brushstrokes. On the contrary, simple items like eggs and steamed buns with scarce elements will make you feel like you have no idea where to start drawing.

This is also why in the so-called freehand painting tutorials in the past, most of them would directly draw flowers, birds, fish and insects. It is not that it is assumed that you have a foundation, but the most basic part is the most difficult to explain.

However, when the middle-aged man heard Feng Xue's question, he hit him with a wooden stick and said in a tone that was a little gritted:
"Just draw an egg if I ask you to! Throw away what I drew before and draw what you want. Don't be bound by a square or a circle. Just follow your feeling. Draw it the way you think an egg should look. Even if you draw a fruit girl, as long as you think she is an egg, then she is! Freehand painting is about expressing your own ideas, not asking you to imitate my ideas!"

These words were spoken in a powerful and resonant voice, as if they contained some supreme truth. However, Feng Xue was dull and did not quite understand them. He could only draw thoughtfully, one circle, two circles, until he was almost numb from drawing, and it seemed to be less and less like an egg.

It seemed that the middle-aged uncle couldn't bear it anymore and sighed:

"It seems I shouldn't show you. Um, don't draw an egg. Draw a grape. Have you ever seen a grape?"

"I've seen it before." Feng Xue, who was almost numb from drawing eggs, nodded immediately. However, without a demonstration, he had no idea how to start. He could only imitate the shape of the grapes in his memory. Unconsciously, he used the drawing skills of a card maker.

The middle-aged uncle did not say anything about this until he outlined a dozen grapes on the sandy ground. Then the uncle nodded and said:
"Does it look like it to you?"

"Is it okay?" Feng Xue looked down at the grapes he had drawn. Yes, they were indeed grapes.

"Then why does it look like that?" The uncle asked a question that sounded a bit outrageous at first. If Feng Xue met this kind of nitpicker under normal circumstances, he would definitely summon his fist to attack, but considering that the other party was teaching him how to paint, he decided to give an answer.

Without trying to guess what the other party meant, he just said calmly:
“Because it resembles the real thing.”

"What are the similarities? Why are they similar?" The middle-aged uncle continued to ask nonsense questions. Feng Xue didn't know how to answer for a moment. It was not that there was no answer, but he couldn't say that they were all similar, right?
Seeing that Feng Xue did not answer, the middle-aged uncle did not ask any more questions. He just stretched out his hand and dug a few times in the sand beside him, making a roughly triangular mark, and then asked Feng Xue:

"What do you think this is?"

"Um...grapes?" Feng Xue looked at the pile of marks, then looked at the grapes he had drawn, and asked tentatively. In fact, this pile of marks did not look more like grapes than the ones he had drawn, but it gave people a feeling of grapes, or in other words, it gave people a feeling that was very similar to the grapes he had drawn. This even made Feng Xue suspect whether this uncle had secretly used architectural techniques.

"Then how is this painting of mine similar to grapes?" The uncle asked a similar question again. Feng Xue felt a headache coming on, but he still forced himself to suppress his irritation and tried to find similarities between the two paintings.

"Have you ever seen abstract paintings? Especially those of people?" The uncle did not give Feng Xue too much time to think, but spoke again. Feng Xue immediately thought of Picasso's distorted paintings in his previous life, and nodded. The uncle picked up a stick and drew a person on the ground. This person had a big head, a thin neck, one hand was long and the other was short, one chest was big and the other was small, and the left foot was abnormally twisted, with five toes almost as big as half the head, but there was a strange sense of harmony, making people feel that the painting was of a person.

"Ah this..." Although it was just a line drawn on the ground, Feng Xue seemed to have imagined it as an oil painting framed in a picture frame.

The middle-aged uncle once again raised his soul-searching question:

"Like a human?"

"It does look like one, but it can only be said to have taken human form." Feng Xue said a little embarrassedly, because it was difficult for him to say with a clear conscience that this thing looked like a real person.

"Oh, then wait a moment, I'll draw another one." The uncle said, breaking off a small section from the branch and starting to paint with the thin stump. This time, he painted very delicately and his brushwork was more like a realistic sketch. However, because it was on sandy soil, he did not depict too much light and shade, but soon, he still outlined a female portrait.

This was a naked woman, lying on her side on the bed with one leg slightly bent. Even though it was just a line on the sand, Feng Xue couldn't help but be amazed for a moment.

But when he looked at the abstract portrait that had begun to take human form, he felt as if he had been electrocuted, with a tingling sensation running straight from his heels to the top of his head.

There was clearly no resemblance at all, but he was sure that the two paintings were of the same person!

"Do you understand?" the middle-aged man asked again. Feng Xue just nodded with a tingling scalp. Only with such a clear contrast did he finally realize the core of abstract art.

The huge head is because at first glance, the eyes will be attracted by the beautiful face. The overly slender neck is because the eyes are attracted by the face and chest and do not stay there. The difference in the chest is because at first glance, the eyes will only focus on one side. The unnatural distortion of the feet and the huge toes are due to the stagnation and focus when the eyes move down. The so-called abstraction is not a messy enlargement or reduction, but an expression of feeling on paper.

“Abstract and freehand are the same. The key is not to resemble something, but to express your own feelings. What you see and what you think are not necessarily the same thing. When you see grapes, you may not care about their color at all, but only care about their sweetness and juiciness. When you see a beauty, you may focus on her slim waist, toes or face, but rarely all of them. Freehand and abstract are to describe your feelings. Whether it resembles something is secondary, because when your feelings are recorded, it will resemble something, even if this resemblance is not visual.”

The middle-aged uncle launched into a long speech for the first time. After he finished speaking, he did not give Feng Xue a chance to ask any more questions. He simply reached out and wiped away all the portraits and grapes on the ground, then pointed at the ground and said:
"Okay, start painting the eggs."

(End of this chapter)