The Painting 2
After a while she picked up the different brushes close to her, one by one and felt the texture of the bristles. It was just as soft as she thought, maybe even softer. It reminded her of her past life. She had always enjoyed drawing and designing, but being the Empress of BeiMing state deprived her of enjoying her talents. To the point that the only things she ever designed were three hair ornaments, one for her mother, one for her sister and one for the Empress Dowager before she was wedded to the then Crown Prince Jingli.
In the Imperial harem, having such talents were indeed praise worthy but at some point it just became a means of showing off by the other concubines. Their talents and skills simply became a means of fueling their competition against each other just to gain favour from the Emperor, and she being the Empress was not even given the room for showing off.
Although painting was a bit more technical than just drawing designs, but she was sure she could pull it off. Plus, she vowed to herself to make Mr Yang beg for her work later on. 'This Empress will make you grovel for my work.' she breamed with confidence.
Since the theme was about ancient China , a thought came to mind and she decided to work on it.
Zhu Yunqing began work on the idea that came to mind. Her hand movement was smooth and fluid as she moved the brush across the watercolour paper while painting. As an Empress, she was multi-talented, no other consort of the Emperor could match up her in skills and Wisdom.
After a few minutes, something caught the eyes of a few students who had finished painting. They glanced around the class saw a very different turn of events from someone at the very back of the class. Something they would had never imagined they would witness.
A very serious Zhu Yunqing with a brush in her hand. It was totally unexpected and they wondered what she was doing. This was the first time they had ever seen her holding a painting brush in this class. Her manner in which she held her brush, swinging across the watercolour paper with an air of elegance and her seriousness suddenly became a spectacle for the class. They became murmuring, wondering what she was actually doing.
Her hand movement made her seem like that of a professional. All these while she was drawing caricatures, she only used a pencil and shaded most parts. She never once lifted the brush in an attempt to even paint the caricatures.
Some who knew how to paint very well were surprised at how smoothly her hand movements were as she moved the brush across the watercolour paper.
Some sniggered as they felt she was finally painting the caricature this time around. Others just felt she would end up producing nothing but rubbish once again.
Her hand movement with the brush was so fluid that she could be mistaken for someone who was writing writing a poem using calligraphy. Every brush stoke she made was gently yet with a flow that appeared to have a sense of where it was going.
Mr Yang, who was seated in front was not left out of the spectacle. Although he was in awe a bit as he witnessed her gentle and light hand movements. Though intrigued, he still could not help but wonder what mischief she was up to this time around.
After about 30 minutes, Zhu Yunqing was done with most part of her painting. So she took a smaller brush from the set of brushes and continued. She kept on changing her brushes as was required at intervals to add a few more finishing touches to the detailing of her artwork.
Meanwhile, a certain someone was quite pleased that Zhu Yunqing wanted to embarrass herself again and she did not need to lift a finger to do anything.
Not able to take the whole suspense anymore, Mr Yang stook up from his seat, his lips curved in a sardonic smile. Obviously criticizing Zhu Yunqing's work before he saw it.
He felt that she was busy doing nonsense once again but still wanted to confirm it with his eyes.
When he finally reach where Zhu Yunqing was seated, he turned to gaze at her artwork. His jaws dropped the minute his eyes got a glance at her art piece. His eyes almost popped out of the sockets.
'Was this the same girl that always either drew caricatures or submitted an empty paper?' he was puzzled.
He could not believe his eyes for even a moment. If he was told that she had painted such a work, he would have slapped the previous papers Zhu Yunqing had submitted all this time across the face of the person who told him that. But now that he was the one who was seeing it first hand, he still could not believe it; it was like a huge slap on his own face.