Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

Time management day. Didn't prepare to go out Plein Air. In the morning decided to see Sue Johnston's demo in Pleasanton. Thought it was a nice place to Plein Air. So started packing my outdoor painting stuff. There was only an hour before the demo after I arrived. Didn't have enough time to paint, so walked around in the Downtown Pleasanton, took photos for the future painting ideas. Went to the Demo, had learned some nice tips from Sue. She did a wonderful watercolor demo. It was lucky that the traffic was not bad on the way home. Jumped into my backyard, painted this succulent till it was getting dark. Didn't forget my frog, can you see he was smiling? But I was tired.

This is today's effort on my garden series. My first time using alcohol on my work, didn't show anything like the other artists'. How strange? Spring is really here, I couldn't stop sneezing while painting in the backyard. Unfortunately, that means my allergy season, which usually effects my body about half a year. I couldn't enjoy spring outdoors as much as most others; hiding indoors, shutting all the windows... I guess that it is the better time to me working in my studio now. But I didn't forget to express the spring feeling into my succulent painting.

I'd love to share my study with others, it is about an artist's journey of experimentation. I am not a a realistic painter, I love to express my own feeling into my work. That is why painting a photo is boring to me. Anyway, because I have joined the Strada January challenge, I paint every day. I know that it is the rainy season now, so my succulents are the series subject I choose to practice. I am struggling every day only drawing, and the colors are difficult to express. Each small work has taken me longer time to finish, and I've spent more time to study on my plants as well. I guess that is what making progress is all about. I've collected many succulents. Of those, only a few I can remember the names. Most of them are easy to take care of, though some of them have died, not sure if it was my fault, or because of the weather.

Lovely weather on Sunday, painted this cacti in my backyard. I think that it is called a cucumber succulent. Continuing painting one series is not very easy. But we all know that artists have to practice each day to become better ones. And since I want to get better, I have to find a my own way to get myself into one kind of subject study. Wish me luck please!

"A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are." -- Unknown Saturday at Pacifica. Gorgeous sky and the ocean, painted near the Pier. Heard a familiar voice, surprised to see a couple of my long time no see friends. Their kids are off to college now so they have a little more time for themselves. The rest of the afternoon and evening we tried to catch up, and they took us to see the beautiful San Francisco night view on the top of twin peaks.

Today I continued painting the garden series worked on design. This succulent was blue color, it looked very interesting when the light and the shadows there. Of courses the light was gone after I had finished it.

Finally I could not stand painting plants around the house and made a quick decision to go out Plein Air painting. 64 degrees and very warm at the Lighthouse Point. I did a sketch first, and painted at this location. I used a light weight tripod, it was not too windy, but my station was not stable enough. I had experience painting in different weather conditions, and so should not have any excuses. In the morning I thought that I would have two paintings done. After one I was very tired already.

What I like is the winter light that makes the shadows longer and bigger, gives a dramatic look. Sunny day, I still felt cold standing in the shade and painting outdoors. Today I painted this sick succulent in my backyard, which I had been watching for a while, not sure how long I could have it. I didn't want to paint the hanging chain in too much detail, the focal point was the plant. Good benefits of painting at home or nearby are don't need to waste time on the road and paint familiar things or environments.

Gorgeous sunny day, painted in the backyard. It was so cold, and I had to put more cloths on, changed to wear my warm boots too. What I worked on was the contrast between the light and shadows. Winter light is precious, it passes very quick. I found out that there were certain patterns of the succulent growing interestingly, and I had spent an hour working on... Realized that too much detail only made my small size painting looked messy after I did. So I had to erase most of them. Good exercise with a good lesson to me today.

Beautiful day, but only stayed at home cleaned up my studio spending most of the day today, before Lunar New Year. Just realized how much I had done. Now, I got an answer why I was always busy, and felt that there was not much room left too... lol. Before getting too dark, I did a quick watercolor sketch in the backyard.

Quite dramatic weather today, windy, raining, sunny, cloudy... I know that I can not paint well some days. This was one of those days, no matter how hard I tried, everything seemed not in a right direction. Well, hoping tomorrow is a better day!

Nice and warm day, really felt like spring. Saw this common plant which I don't know the name of next to a parking lot nearby. I was attracted by the light and shadows. Also there were many different colors I don't know how to describe it in written language, so I had to paint it using my visual language.

Not raining today. The sun even came out in the afternoon. I spent an hour to clean up the back yard since my back had improved a lot. I painted nearby in the neighborhood, used wet into wet technique. It felt warm and like spring coming. I expressed my feeling into today's exercise.

Recently I am focusing on my garden still life series, not only because it is the rainy season, also it is a good exercise to do so. Honestly, I won't paint still lives if I could go out to paint landscapes. The current situation happened to me for a good reason, I have found out that it was a challenging subject. I have kept doing it, just because I love my plants, watching them grow, and they are part of my life, right? And I remembered that my first drawing lesson  was outdoor drawing peonies in a park in downtown Beijing when I was about ten years old in primary school. There were so many people in the park enjoying the peonies, I had no clue what I was doing, my one to one "teacher" was watching me, my hand was shaking and sweaty, the drawing papers were all wet, many people passing by, most of them thought my drawing was terrible... My younger age confidence might have been damaged by that experience, and that could be one of the reasons I never was interested in...

Living in California long enough, we all know how important rain is. Actually, I feel excited each time it rains. Continued painting my succulent in the garden during this rainy day. This is a type of aloe vera, maybe native in California. Moved my decorative mushroom nearby the plant to help the contrast on such a gray day. Challenging part of painting was the white dots on the leaves, first time I used the wax technique.

My back is getting a little bit better today. Continued painting my succulent in the garden. If I remember correctly, this type of the succulents is called "Ghost Plant". Though it was wet, but I enjoyed painting in the garden under the roof, listening to music, my plants and the frogs surrounding me. Challenging to paint in a raining day there was not enough light and contrast, everything looks gray.

I couldn't go too far to paint these days. First my driver's license expired, just received my renew one last Saturday. Then I hurt my back trying to clean up the garage yesterday morning. I didn't think it was serious, so won't bother to see a doctor. But it was swollen, not easy move around, sit down or get up, etc... Raining today, and it stopped for a while, the sun came out from the clouds. I am so glad that I have many plants to paint at home. I am not a realistic still life painter. Staring at my succulent, drawing stiffly, though I kept telling myself that they were only shapes. Later felt much more fun playing with colors. Painting really is my nature pain killer. Try it if you don't believe it.

It didn't rain on Sunday. I hurt my back while just starting to clean the garage this morning. So I decided to paint. This aloe vera was located nearby, which is one of the very topical succulents growing in California. I had been thinking how I could paint a regular thing into a creative work, though had to be done in Plein Air way... During the painting, my back hurt and bothered me, also I kept thinking that I really should start painting in oil, etc.. Really it looked very different than I usually painted in watercolors. Is that interesting?

Very nice day, continued painting my garden still-life series. Haha, I remember this succulent is called "fishbone succulent/cactus". Could you see where my happy frog hidden in the painting is? My fault that I didn't take good care of my succulents. I thought that they were easy to care for. I spent a little bit time in the garden recently, and found that half a dozen of them died because of too much water, and they were my favorite ones. Wish I had painted all of them already...

It looked that was going to rain again, so I continued my study for the Garden still-life series - another one from my succulent collection, I don't remember its name, but it is already full of buds. I have a couple of garden frogs - those make me feeling happy. I sketched them together. No longer drawing leaf by leaf, this is the way how I expressed my own feeling through my artwork.

Sun came out in the morning, but it was wet everywhere. Painted nearby in the neighborhood. I used to paint loose, I don't have tiny point brush for the edge. Saw this large size aloe vera happily started blooming in the sun, thought that we were very lucky living in California. But why did we still feel cold in winter?

Continued raining, continued painting my new series of garden still life. Not many succulents of mine could move inside the house easily, some of them had grown quite large size, some of them in the pots which were already too heavy to carry. For example, I had brought a baby elephant succulent only a couple of inches tall when I just moved to this country, California bay area eighteen years ago. Now it had grown eight or nine feet tall at least. So I moved this small one under the roof for painting in the rain outside. Didn't do the same way painting leaf by leaf. Did I lose my patience, or just being myself?

Raining again. Brought another potted succulent inside from my garden, left a piece of baby crab shell I had found on the beach next to it, and painted another still life.  I never thought that I could paint a still life, it really challenged my patience. Most of my previous still life paintings were from my memories or imagination. During the recent practice, I started to like painting still life, especially while listening to music on a rainy winter day. Just not sure if it will be the direction for my future paintings. What do you think?

Not a rainy day, sun came out around noon. What attracted to me was the light and shadows of this house. I guessed that there was nobody at home, the dog barked like crazy... Tried a couple of times, I couldn't tell this neighborhood that I just came to paint, so I had to give up. I brought my stuff back to the car, suddenly the dog stopped barking. All right, I painted inside my car, though I wasn't in the right position to paint, but I did it and retouched a little bit more after got home.

Raining Sunday, painted a still-life at home. I am a little crazy about succulent plants and have collected many. Most of them I don't remember the names of. Liked the one I painted today, it grew like a chrysanthemum flower. Do you know this plant's name by any chance? I brought it in from the rain. Used a piece of clothing from my dirty laundry, so I didn't need to do extra washing, just as simple as it looked.

I knew that it was going to rain today, so I was well prepared. I couldn't paint standing up as I usually do, just because it was windy. Arrived earlier, got a chance to sketch the boat and had some wash with watercolors, then it started raining. I painted inside the car for a while. Came back home to finish this rusty fishing boat painting.

A study of my succulent in the garden. Cold weather, watercolor painting is not easy to dry...

Today the morning light on my little cacti with shadow grabbed my attention, here is my sketch. I never thought I would like sketching or painting plants. Now, I have found that I actually enjoy watching and drawing them. Painting outdoors is great, but it takes extra hour(s) on the road most of the time. I've noticed that there are so many subjects I could do just surrounding me in my daily life. I don't think I would run of painting ideas for sure, not mention my endless imagination... Paint daily is a necessary exercise, and it is very important for being an artist, don't you agree?

I've started using a new sketchbook this year. I was interested about the shadows on the staircase so I thought I'd focus on for today's subject. Did a quick drawing, then painted over with watercolors. I thought it was not a good watercolor paper, had forgotten I was only sketching, lol...

🍋This is my lovely lemon tree of nine years now. I propagated it from a one foot long branch which was in a pile of trimmings from the neighbor's tree. I could not believe that I had gotten 6 lemons at the end of the second year for a couple of following years. I learned how to trim it and changed it into a two gallons container last spring, but there were only two lemons from last year. Now, it is blooming again with a lot of flowers that brings me joy and hope each day.