Chapter 185: Sand Art Skills

Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation

“He finished a painting by himself?”

Wen Wan was suspicious. She entered the studio and approached the two. Looking at the table, there indeed was a drawing. It depicted a pagoda with a complete structure, detailed lines separating it evenly, and was overall pleasing to look at.

Wen Wan scrunched her brows and asked Ding even more suspiciously. “He drew this?”

Ding nodded.

Wen Wan’s brows creased even more as she looked toward Meng Fan. “You’ve learned this before?”

Meng Fan shook his head.

Ding said, “He definitely didn’t. Professor, you don’t know, but before we began, this iron bro didn’t even know how to spread the sand… But in an hour, he was able to grasp the techniques for sand painting! Then he did these paintings. It was like he could watch once, learn, try it, try it again and he’d know it by heart. Not only is it an exact replica, but he could also one-up you!”

“He’s really that fast?”

Wen Wan was still in disbelief. Instead of going out to eat, she looked at Meng Fan again. “Is Ding telling the truth?”

Ding was innocent. Why would he lie?

Meng Fan nodded, so Wen Wan insisted he perform it for her.

He nodded again and waved his hand, wiping away the pagoda on the table. He then reached out and grabbed a handful of sand and began spreading it on the stand, easing his grip as he moved along. Slowly, the form of a fish appeared. He then made a few dashes with his fingers, and the eyes, fins, and gills became evident as well. In no time, a lively fish appeared on the table.

He then took the remaining sand and placed them in the corner, drawing a few more circles and pushing his fingers down. A water lily appeared.

He grabbed a few more handfuls of sand, and in less than a minute, he realized a scene of peaceful fish among water lilies.

Meng Fan only realized his attributes were beneficial to sand painting after he started learning it. It was too fitting!

The most efficient attribute that was transferred was his hand speed. Initially, he thought hand speed could only help his drawing skills, but after officially experimenting with sand painting, he realized how much power and skill this hand speed really could bring.

If his hand speed was fast, that meant all the nerves in his hands were more sensitive as well, and their muscles were more prominent. Overall, that meant he had better control of his hands!

It didn’t feel like much while he was drawing manga, but his control had been incredible when he was playing arcade basketball. When it came to sand painting, which required using one’s hands like a brush, Meng Fan realized this was the biggest gain of all.

While he was drawing his manga, he had the assistance of a universal pen. But for sand painting, he had his blessed hands. To be a bit excessive, they were basically universal pens!

Wen Wan didn’t see the process for the pagoda painting, only the result, but this time, both were right in front of her. Clean, fast, clear, powerful, bold… his technique was fluid with no extraneous actions. His drawing was abnormal, beautiful, and delicate, producing a painting that was pristine and beautiful. He already expressed the art to its absolute finest!

Although he was lacking a lot in artistic skill, the time it took Meng Fan to learn everything was enough to stun even Wen Wan, who was accustomed to teaching students with incredible talent and skills. It was a shock!

“Don’t need to see it, let’s eat.”

After taking a look at the drawing, Wen Wan knew Meng Fan had mastered the technique. In less than two hours, including the time it took to discuss the skills, Wen Wan was speechless at the rate Meng Fan learned.

No wonder he had the confidence to boast he was a fast learner.

There was a kitchen on the third floor with some take out. After eating, they went back downstairs where Wen Wan began to teach him. As for Ding, he maintained his strong sense of curiosity and followed them into the studio, helping out where he was needed.

“I won’t go on about the basics, you just need to practice. Just a reminder, since you came from a manga background, then you should keep your manga style; there’s no need to avoid it.

Wen Wan lit some sandalwood out of habit, although it had nothing to do with sand painting. But every time she taught or performed, she would light some sandalwood no matter where she was. This was her signature.

“Next, I’ll teach you some skills, composite techniques, combination techniques, and color balance techniques. Afterward, we’ll study composition, overlaying, and white space. Then lastly, we will go over telling a story through the sand.”

“Let’s begin with compound techniques and combination techniques. The two are very similar. The former is an advanced form of a single technique, while the latter is a combination of multiple techniques.”

“The premise of the compound technique is to loosen your fingers. Each finger, in addition to your palms, knuckles, and even the wrist and elbow, is a tool for sand painting. You must remember, you can rely on the most flexible of these, whether it’s a finger or any part of your body. But never rely on it completely, as it will constrain you and limit your abilities. You should know this from the start.”

Wen Wan’s method of teaching was very simple. Hand to hand demonstration in addition to a vocal lesson. It was not only in-depth, but brief, and allowed information to be grasped in an easy format. She would show it to a person, then explain the reasoning behind it.

Her method of teaching was very flexible and was constantly adjusting to cater to Meng Fan’s understanding and progress. Some she only had to show once, while others were more difficult and had to be repeated.

Her demonstration was also quite dazzling. Her fingers were very beautiful and flexible as well. There were very beautiful transitional movements, regardless of what she was drawing. The beauty brought out by her fingers alone could be considered a gift from god.

“Color-balance technique, also called visual technique, is the biggest difference between sand painting and manga and other painting types. Other forms of art will use it but not often, unlike sand painting which uses it frequently. The most simple example is if you were to draw a cabbage, other art forms would just paint a cabbage, but in sand painting, you can choose to do this…”

Wen Wan waved her hand across the sand table, undulating slightly. After covering the surface with sand, she cleared out a blank space, which formed the outline of a cabbage.

This method of painting was basically painting the areas that didn’t need to be painted, and what was left became her subject.

But doing so in sand painting was obviously because spreading the sand would make it easier, and one could ‘erase’ the parts one didn’t want very quickly.

She flipped the painting.

This was Meng Fan’s biggest joy.

After trying it, it felt so right and was quite fun as well.

“Human faces are like this too….”

Wen Wan demonstrated this to Meng Fan then began to explain the techniques behind it…

“Next… Let’s talk about composition.”

Wen Wan realized that she had gone over all the skills and paused for a moment. This progress was a bit fast. She felt as if she had been ranting on about the technique to herself while Meng Fan was in the background keeping up with her ramblings. It wasn’t just that he understood her words either, but his movements were able to keep up as well. If he wasn’t already so adept at the skill, she wouldn’t have advanced so smoothly.

“There’s not much to say about composition. Your original foundations are enough. Let’s skip forward to overlapping compositions. Sand painting happens very fast. The process requires a lot of coverage in the beginning, so it’s very important to know how you use some elements from the previous painting in the next painting. Otherwise, there’s not much performance in painting one piece and wiping it away.”

“The narrative telling method is the same as above. In the end, it all comes to conception, which requires skill. But most importantly, it depends on the artist’s own cultivation, and their understanding of the world…”

At four-thirty, Wen Wan stopped her teaching, realizing there wasn’t anything left to talk about.

It wasn’t that she had gone over everything, but that Meng Fan’s current performance showed that she did not need to go over the rest.

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