Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

Gorgeous day came to Los Altos History Museum to paint, spent a lot of time to find a parking spot. A quick work, then I was invited to an artist/architect's beautiful house for a lunch party near by. So much food in a lovely and well designed home. She designed her own home, how cool it was! Enjoyed the rest of day!

  Arrived at the location around 10am, just tried to avoid traffic in the morning. This unique building of the Laine's Bites shop was the one I had wanted to paint for a while, set up my station under a young tree with enough shade. A guy was sweeping the street, looked like he was trying to clean off all the dirt from the ground. There was so much dust in the air, I felt it hard to breath, my street parked car was covered with dust very soon. It was OK, I kept telling myself, and focused on my work... Maybe an hour later after the sweeping guy left, a spaying water truck started to clean the street. It was the most busy, small T-junction with endless huge trucks passing by both ways with the loudest squishing noises of heavy metal sounds. Wow, it was my first time to deal with this kind of situation, most of time I had to wait for the trucks to pass by, just because I want to see the object I was working on. The sweeping truck was back and forth at least 10 times in front of ...

Happy 重陽節 Double Ninth Festival! Today is Double Ninth on Chinese calendar, traditionally we usually 出遊賞秋 enjoy the autumn, 登高遠眺 overlook the high, 觀想菊花 admire the chrysanthemum, 遍插茱萸 insert the Cornus, 吃重陽糕 eat the heavy Sun Cake, 飲菊花酒 drink the chrysanthemum wine, and especially respect all the elders. It sounds a little bit complex, certainly we couldn't do much here. Came to paint Villa Montalvo was ideal to overlook the high. It was a perfect day for hiking, and I was always amazed by the creation of nature. Only saw a few people on the trail. What a great place to look at Silicon valley from the top of the mountain. It has been nineteen years since I have been living in the valley and this country. I never liked here for a long time, until I started painting outdoors I guess. I enjoyed visiting and painting here. Light had changed, roughly finished my painting, will be back again for sure.

My first time to paint this gorgeous hidden winery. After the owner Vivian showed us around with her friendly, four-year old super active border collie dog, I decided to paint grapes hanging on the vines, actually left on the vines. It was quite hot in the sun, I had to use my umbrella though it was only 45 degrees before I left home in the morning. This cute dog was sitting not far from me, one of his paws sat on small sticks. Of course I understood all he wanted was to find a way to play. I tried focusing to my painting. After a while, he lost his patience and started barking. Couldn't stop at the moment, watercolors dried on paper so fast, I had to continue... Roughly finished, on the way back to my car, I saw him was all wet, just swam or did something fun in the pond I guessed. I picked up a small tree branch from the ground, didn't throw away very far, than I found a small piece of wood chips to throw. He was so happy to pick it up, and carried it inside his mouth runni...

It was beautiful in the mountains, moistness in the distance felt connected with the dramatic clouds. The temperature suddenly dropped down overnight from a hot Indian summer to winter, under 60 degrees. Luckily I brought my winter jacket, didn't feel even a little bit hot after I put it and while painting till 1pm. After the first painting, I noticed that there was a composition problem so I had to paint the second one. I didn't bring extra water, using the dirty water to paint my second wasn't easy in watercolors. I painted directly on the paper with with a brush and the left over dirty water, thought it would help me paint loosely. But it ended up another painting with a compositional issue... Time to go home, I drove the wrong direction in the mountains, but my car GPS and Google map didn't mention to me, only the time and miles showed me the extra minutes and extra miles. Maybe I should start hibernating, lol...

Over 100 miles and about 3 hours driving around trip, just because I was caught in a little bit traffic in the morning. Thinking to paint the lighthouse for a long time, it was too windy or it was raining... But today was a hot day. After my dental appointment, driving on windy CA highway route 84 in the hills, I really did want to arrive the Pigeon Point as early as I could. There was an SUV Volvo car in front of me driving only 15 miles/hr. I was very patient at the beginning, because usually I am a slow driver, always let most of the cars pass by me if it is possible. After a couple of miles, I realized that his brakes were on all the way, so I sent him flashing headlights since there was only one lane, with the occasional shoulders. But this guy would not let me pass. After a while, I started honking gently with flashing, he still drove very slow for miles... Finally he pulled his car on the shoulder, so I was able to arrive the location past 11am. Beautiful breezy day aroun...

Planned to paint at the The New Almaden quicksilver mine. Curious about the location when I was driving by the Casa Grande, a historic building dating back to 1824. Turned around and found a perfect shady spot to paint. It was very quiet, saw a couple cars parking there. The museum was closed. Only birds were singing loud...Saw a huge green pine cone. I had to take a selfie to compare it with my head. Still felt hot near noon...