Animal Expression I - Wild Life

Like most artists, I love painting animals too:-)! No matter if they are pets or animals in nature, they all have their own expressions.

Before I start to paint or draw on canvas or paper, I usually study how to capture individual or groups of any kind of living creatures. Doesn't matter in my vibrant color palette or in a duo-tone drawing or if it is in a more realistic style to more abstract. The composition is always my first priority, and then the movement, and then the expression.
What I believe is always to pay more attention to everything surrounding daily life, how the animals live, where, and what they do etc.. It helps me to find more subjects to paint. Actually, I never run out of ideas to paint. And day by day, I can add up more experience, when I am ready to paint the subject, even if I don't have enough study materials, there is a lot of information in my mind already. So, I can just follow my my feeling to create them on canvas and bring them to life.

The best result is always from the viewer/s' reaction and critique of my finished painting, they always help me and my art continuing to develop. The "Giraffe Family"(above) and the "Hand in Hand"(below) were created in palette knife.

Please click each image to view a better one, or view more animal paintings at my online gallery https://xueling-zou.pixels.com/collections/portrait+of+animals





Original Art Story

Original Art Story - The Colors of La Boca Argentina

Paintings with Auspicious Symbols V - Peacocks 孔雀東南飛

Chinese Moon Festival II - A Classical Poem and Homesick 中秋节思乡

Plein Air @ Baylands Nature preserve Palo Alto CA 加州風景寫生

The Old Man and The Sea - Original Watercolor

Original Art Stories - Tribute to Whitney Houston

Plein Air @ Downtown Woodside CA and Short-pose male live model drawing

Short-pose live male model drawings

Plein Air @ near Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport CA

Plein Air @ Alviso Marina County Park San Jose CA