More Oil Paint and the Artist

Running into her room, Yujia fetched the things she needed quickly. She returned with a small container, a rag, and the thickest kind of paper she could find. She typically used all of them when doing watercolor paint.

"Are you going to start painting now?" he asked.

Yujia shook her head. "Not yet. Usually, with oil painting, I like to do it on a canvas, but since I don't have a canvas right now, I'll just have to stick with priming this paper."

She followed up with laying out the piece of paper on the table, flat. With the paper now on the table, she looked through the box, seeing that along with the paint tubes and other supplies, there was a bottle of rabbit-skin glue granules— a sizing1. There was also a small bottle of oil primer. These were what she needed exactly.

She stared at this, then thought for another moment. 

Yujia had sized and primed paper before, to make it suitable for oil painting. Usually, back in the modern world, she wouldn't do this often— she only tried it a few times— since she could just buy pre-primed canvases. It wasn't very expensive to do so, and convenience was always welcomed. Yet in her memories and experience of priming, the sized and primed paper would take a whole day just to dry properly. The process of drying couldn't be rushed either… 

This meant that though she wanted to paint a serious painting today, she really couldn't do so. The paper would be ruined, and if she somehow managed to make the oil paint work on the paper, it wouldn't last long as a painting either.

A frown appeared on her face. "Well. Disappointing news, but I don't think we can paint today. The paper sizing and priming will take a while."

"Oh." Yunhe sighed too. "I was excited to see the things that you would do."

"Yeah. It's sad." Yujia tapped her fingers on the glass palette. "I could show you how the texture of oil painting feels and all that, but without the proper paper, no serious painting can occur…"

If only she had some pre-primed canvases right now. That would help a lot. She wouldn't mind taking the time to set up the paper or to make a canvas herself, but with Yunhe with her at the moment, she was excited to show him exactly how fun oil painting was. The greatness of the medium simply couldn't be expressed with normal paper.

But Yujia wasn't in despair for long.

As if her thoughts were read, her wishes granted, sounds of two sets of footsteps came nearing her courtyard.

Two servants, one carrying a stack of canvases and the other one carrying an easel, entered the courtyard. They bowed, then presented the materials. 

The one carrying the easel greeted her, explaining, "The master told me to send you these with his apologies. He had all of these materials made beforehand, and he forgot to send the canvases along with Disciple Ye. He… may have forgotten temporarily that one needed something to paint on along with the paint that he sent." 

Yujia blinked.

Then, a wide smile spreading across her face, she rushed forward, taking the canvases from the servant and telling the other servant to set the easel by the table. 

All the issues rising up about canvases vanished in a second. Times like these were what made Yujia entertain herself with the idea that her master was a guardian angel. 

Almost laughing with glee, Yujia told the servant who just spoke with her, "When you return, tell my master that I am deeply grateful, that I will go thank him in person once I finish playing around with all of these paints, and that the only reason for why I haven't gone to thank him yet is because… I was afraid that he might be sleeping, so I didn't want to disturb him."

The servant nodded, then bowed again. Along with the other servant, he left, leaving Yujia and Yunhe with the canvases that she needed all along.

"These should be canvases ready for painting," Yujia speculated. Her master wouldn't send unprimed canvases to her, would he?

"Canvases?" Yunhe repeated.

"Yes." It was yet another term that Yunhe had never heard before. She placed a hand on one canvas on the table. "This is a canvas." Picking up a large brush and looking back at the paint, she asked, "So… what do you want to see me paint, as a demonstration?"

Yunhe thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. "I don't really care. Whatever suits you, I guess. I'm just here to see how great these oil paints are to make you act this way."

"Great." Yujia grinned. "I like not having limits." 

She considered painting her usual birds. She liked painting them, and she knew how to paint birds well from all the years of painting them.

Surprisingly, Yujia realized that she hadn't actually made too many bird paintings ever since transmigrating. Perhaps she just painted too many generic mountain paintings.

The last time she created a painting with a bird as the main focus was a painting she made for Bo Zhiyuan, the Second Young Master who commissioned her. Those birds that she painted were chickens.

Yujia thought back to that scene. She made the painting at the time to prove her skills to him. The reason for why she chose to paint chickens was also because she ate a roasted chicken for lunch on that day. Her lunch happened to inspire her.

This idea made her recall what she had for lunch today— some marinated beef. 

At this thought, Yujia's smile grew even wider now. 

Screw the idea of painting birds. "I'll paint a cow." 

"A cow?" Yunhe tilted his head, perfectly serious. He couldn't understand the reason for why his junior sister now smiled so happily. One second, she was contemplating the subject of her painting, and the next second, she was smiling at the idea of painting a cow. Could the idea of a cow truly entertain her that much? So, he questioned, "Why?"

While Yujia blended a bit of black into the orange color she already created, she gave him a very simple answer.

"I had beef for lunch."