All-rounder Artist

In the days that followed, aside from attending classes, Lin Yuan had been continuously seeking ways to acquire painting prestige value—

The first one, holding an art exhibition, was off the table.

Holding an art exhibition required sponsorship, and there would be no fool willing to sponsor a small, unknown artist like Lin Yuan whose work and fame were non-existent.

As for self-funding?

Lin Yuan would never host his own exhibition in this lifetime.

Next is finding someone as a mentor. Being guided by a successful industry painter can save many detours, but Lin Yuan isn’t acquainted with any such painting artists.

After ruling out these two channels, Lin Yuan’s available option was:

To earn Prestige Values from students like those in Qin Art first.

With a school as big as Qin Art, there might be a foundation offering a thousand Prestige Values, so he should first look for places within the school where he can get painting prestige value.

After investigation, Lin Yuan found that the school did have an art club.

Joining the art club might offer some chances of earning prestige, after all, if there’s one thing that Qin Art is never short of, it’s a variety of clubs.

There are sports clubs like basketball, soccer, and even street dance clubs, and so on.

There are also arts clubs like piano, painting, calligraphy, poetry, and so forth.

All these clubs are large in scope, as Qin Art itself is an art college, offering related majors.

However, Lin Yuan, a music student, has no connection with other majors. The only person he knows outside of the music department is Jian Yi, who is a student in the acting department, which is not related to painting either.

Left with no other choice.

He could only take the straightforward route. Went to the office of the painting club and submitted his application.

“Do you have a background in painting?”

The school-backed large clubs have designated office spaces, and there are club members present all the time, much like a student council.

After Lin Yuan clarified his intention, as expected, he was grilled with questions.

“Yes.”

Lin Yuan replied affirmatively.

The other party glanced at Lin Yuan’s information: “You’re a music student, huh. The majority of our club members are fine art students…”

“Is there a restriction?”

“Well, there’s no real restriction, but without a major advantage, you might find it hard to get by in the club. After all, we have many GOATs in the painting department in our club. We also often have external student exhibitions and such, all of which have quota restrictions. Are you sure you want to join?”

Exhibitions?

Lin Yuan’s eyes lit up: “I want to join.”

The other party smirked smugly: “Then fill out this form, and it would be best if you could fill in your class schedule as well. We will consider your availability for activities based on that.”

Their goal is not to dissuade Lin Yuan!

The school clubs highly anticipate more students joining, as having more members implies a large club. Every club hopes to be the largest in the school. Therefore, the painting club would only be delighted when someone applies to join.

And the newcomers surely wouldn’t be frightened off by their words!

Because the majority of them are tempted by the club’s exhibitions, even though these newcomers may not have a chance to display their work at all.

After filling out the application form.

Without even looking at it, the other party quickly stamped their approval, and they seemed anxious as if Lin Yuan would change his mind: “There’s something I forgot to tell you. After joining the club, you’ll have to participate in club activities in your spare time. If you are absent multiple times, our club will have to dismiss you. To avoid instances where some students join our club on whim and then find our club activities tedious, we usually provide this information upfront.”

This is obviously not something they forgot to mention.

Clearly, they were afraid Lin Yuan would back out after hearing this, so they had him first fill out the application, then disclosed this fact.

“No problem.”

The composing course wasn’t too hectic, so Lin Yuan had quite a lot of free time. He quickly agreed, but joining a club seemed to be much simpler than he had imagined.

After filling out the application form, the student who had stamped Lin Yuan’s form stood up: “Do you have time? I can take you to our activity area for a tour.”

“Sure.”

Lin Yuan followed him, and soon they reached a large building: “There are many clubs in this building, our painting club is on the first floor.”

Entering the building.

Lin Yuan discovered that the painting club’s activity area was actually a large classroom of several hundred square meters. In the classroom, many club members were currently drawing on their canvases. Some were sketching, some were painting with watercolors, some were oil painting, and some were creating traditional Chinese paintings. The air was filled with the smell of various paints.

“A newbie?”

One of the person-in-charge in the club got Lin Yuan’s information, took a look at him, “You’re a second-year composition student huh, why didn’t you come in your first year?”

Most students start joining clubs in their first year.

Lin Yuan said, “1 didn’t know how to draw when I was in my first year.”

The person on the other side raised his eyebrows, confirming Lin Yuan as a complete newbie, “Since you didn’t bring your drawing tools, you can start by cleaning the drawing studio. Just clean the whole eastern part, the cleaning supplies are in the washroom next door.”

“Hmm.”

Lin Yuan complied.

The person who brought Lin Yuan showed a smile. Newcomers are typically assigned tasks like cleaning. This is not only in the case of the painting club but in other clubs too.

Lin Yuan started cleaning diligently.

Although it was just the eastern part, the area was quite large. There were a lot of eraser shavings on the floor, and easels were scattered everywhere making it quite troublesome for Lin Yuan to clean.

Zhong Yu was involved in mimicking a character sketch and encountered a tricky part when he suddenly heard a voice near his ear, “Can you please lift your feet?”

“Clean somewhere else first.”

Zhong Yu said without lifting his head.

“Just for a moment.” Lin Yuan was looking at the eraser shavings under Zhong Yu’s feet. If he left this part uncleaned, his severe OCD wouldn’t be able to tolerate it.

“Hey.”

Zhong Yu got a bit impatient, looked at Lin Yuan, and said in a somewhat unfriendly tone: “New face, huh? Newcomer in the club?”

“Yes.”

“Which year are you in?”

“Second year.”

“Well, let me teach you a rule as a third-year senior today. When cleaning in our painting club, you must keep quiet and not easily disturb the process of creation of seniors.”

“Aren’t you just copying?”

Lin Yuan was puzzled. Copying is not creating.

Zhong Yu got upset, stopped painting, glared at Lin Yuan, and said angrily, “Hey, why not just give you the pencil, and you do the drawing?”

“Sure.”

Lin Yuan said, “Once you’ve finished drawing, please lift your feet.”

Zhong Yu:”…”

Is this junior serious? Can’t he tell that I’m being sarcastic?

Lin Yuan didn’t think too much about it and picked up a pencil from the side as he was eager to clean the rest of the area. He started drawing swiftly.

This senior had already completed the framework.

Although the framework wasn’t done particularly well.

Then came the detail processing.

“The eyes are not symmetrical… the hairlines are too rigid… the shading on the nostrils is too heavy…”

Lin Yuan glanced at the senior’s half-finished work, his mind was filled with defects of this painting. Even though they were not visible to the ordinary eye, these flaws would naturally be magnified many times in Lin Yuan’s eyes.

He picked up the eraser and briskly erased two-thirds of the drawing. Still feeling that it wasn’t good enough, he ended up erasing all the parts that could be erased.

Zhong Yu couldn’t react in time to stop him. He watched as Lin Yuan erased an hour’s worth of work:

“You….”

Lin Yuan paid him no mind, bent over, and his wrist shook rapidly. He directly corrected many of the flaws in the senior’s work, replacing them with cleaner, crisper lines.

Compared to creating from scratch, Lin Yuan’s speed at copying a painting was horrifying.

Ten minutes later.

Lin Yuan straightened his back, looked at the painting which was almost identical to the original one and said, “Can you lift your feet now?”

“Huh?”

Zhong Yu watched as Lin Yuan freely modified his work, his expression changing from fury to confusion and finally into admiration, all within ten minutes.

And within this short span of ten minutes.

Watching Lin Yuan alter his painting until it was unrecognizable, Zhong Yu’s robust spirit was sent into an unprecedented shock!