As the sun leaned westward again and the day grew late, Gu Weijing finally completed the piece at hand.

He raised the paintbrush and swept it over the canvas in front of him.

"It’s a passable piece."

The final visual effect looked quite good.

Although certain details in the painting still required some polishing and appeared slightly discordant, and upon closer inspection, the brushwork was far from perfect.

Yet, Gu Weijing could still proudly say,

The piece before him was no longer just a forced attempt at making a Fusion Painting for mere gimmicky sales purposes.

Now, the Fusion Painting techniques he demonstrated on this canvas had started to take on a genuine "fusion" aspect.

"There are still areas needing improvement, but the visual impression of this piece could already attempt an exhibition entry." Gu Weijing licked his lips.

This new "Sunshine Orphanage" had no evident major discordant aspects that would significantly mark it down.

With its current level of completion, it seemed to have passed the basic threshold for participating in an art exhibition.

Entering the main display area shouldn’t be an issue,

and if luck were on his side and there weren’t too many strong competitors, it wouldn’t be entirely impossible for it to nab a small award even in a major Asian exhibition like the Lion City Art Exhibition.

There were also regrets,

such as the handling of the expressions, the subtle portrayal of the eyes, and the inadequate smoothness in light and shadow contrast...

Ultimately, Gu Weijing believed he hadn’t fully expressed the potential that the original underlying theme warranted.

Were it not for his lack of proficiency in Chinese Painting Techniques and Sketching Technique, which hindered his control over the pen.

Then,

The final effect of this painting should be much better than it is now.

The full power of Fusion Painting is far from just avoiding deductions.

It’s like a high school girl, inherently a peerless beauty like an Immortal Sister, ending up as a pretty colleague-level appearance after Gu Weijing’s portrayal.

This in itself indirectly indicates that he still hasn’t fully grasped the essence of New Style Painting, nor utilized all the merits of this painting method.

"I can give it a tentative score of sixty for now. Keep striving forward."

Gu Weijing assessed his overall satisfaction with the piece and then applied a Calligraphy and Painting Identification Skill.

[Title: "Sunshine Orphanage"]

[Sketching Technique: Level 4 Tier One Professional Painter (2398/5000)]

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[Oil Painting Technique: Level 5 Tier Two Professional Painter (101/10000)]

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[Chinese Painting Techniques: Level 4 Tier One Professional Painter (1186/5000)]

[Emotions: Simple Works]

The system’s standards for evaluating works have always been stringent.

At this time, on the virtual panel,

it continued to use two dividing lines in the data bar to remind Gu Weijing that his New Style Painting level was just barely satisfactory.

This indicates that, in the system’s eyes, Gu Weijing’s techniques are far from reaching an effortless, natural integration.

Small unnoticed rifts still existed when the three painting skills attempted to blend together.

Even compared to his earlier rendition of "Sunshine Orphanage", the segmentation lines on the data panel have increased by one more.

On the original painting’s panel, there was prominently a dividing line like the dark shark teeth between Chinese Painting and the combination of Oil Painting and Sketch.

Now, even between Oil Painting and Sketch, discordant areas are exhibited, albeit with much lighter and thinner division lines.

But, of course,

The additional dividing line does not affect the visual effect of this piece, which is much more successful than its predecessor.

The latter only had one dividing line, but it completely tore apart the painting’s effect.

Because priorly, Gu Weijing was only forcibly and abruptly incorporating Chinese Painting Techniques with traditional oil painting creation, which didn’t fit with the structure of the painting at all.

Whereas, the technique he now utilized was based on an entirely different painting theory and artistic philosophy.

New Style Painting, from its inception, was meant for mutually blending and complementing these three techniques.

Lang Shining has already proven that this painting theory is flawless.

The ultimate reason for the appearance of rifts on the canvas lies not in the technique but purely in his lack of painting skills.

In short, Gu Weijing simply needs more practice.

For instance,

The combination of Dongxia and Western Painting techniques,

in the hands of masters like Lang Shining, could likely yield an effect of 1+1=3, whereas Gu Weijing’s first attempt, with mutual interference, resulted in perhaps only a 0.3.

Indeed, it was at a level where painting it was almost worse than not painting at all.

Judged by this standard,

The painting before him could probably score around 1.1 or 1.2.

Though it couldn’t compare to the magical transformations of great artists, it still outperformed the viewing sensation of his previous works by several times.

Even though discordance and dissonance still exist, they slightly outperform using Dongxia or Western Painting techniques alone.

"Hmm, the emotional evaluation of this piece is only [Simple Works]."

Gu Weijing shrugged at the emotions pane.

The second task of "Sea of All Rivers" requires an emotional rating of Heartfelt or higher to complete.

After putting down the brush and not hearing the task completion prompt, Gu Weijing was already mentally prepared.

He was slightly disappointed, though not too much.

A person should possess self-awareness,

During the painting process, he originally anticipated that, unexpectedly, the emotion expressed in this painting would, at most, be classified as Simple Works.