Plein Air @ Villa Montalvo Saratoga CA 加州風景寫生

"When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed." -- Maya Angelou

Perfect weather for painting outdoors. Nice to be with the other artists and enjoyed the fresh air and peacefulness. A pretty young lady from Romania with two young kids were sitting on the bench next to where I was painting. She asked her 4-year-old son to help take pictures for her and her younger baby she was holding in her arms. I stopped painting, and took photos for her with her kids. She was so happy and kept saying thanks to me many, many times. She told me that she thought the photos I took were very professional, and she seldom had good photos with both her babies together for being a busy mother, etc.. I was glad that I helped her capture these precious moments at such a beautiful location. And I added a Plain Air painter figure into my painting. Do you know who she is?
San Francisco Bay Area CA Saratoga, CA, USA
Storytelling artist Xueling Zou who works in ♦️ watercolor & ♦️ oil mediums on ♦️ original art Plein Air paintings. Ship worldwide since 2010 @ https://about.me/xuelingzou@ about.me/xuelingzou or http://xueling-zou.pixels.com

Original Art Story

The Old Man and The Sea - Original Watercolor

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This original watercolor painting was inspired by Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea.  It is one of my favorite watercolors, and a great gift for Father's Day. (Please click the image to enlarge) I read this book in Chinese a long time ago, then I read it again in English when I was studying in Australia. Back to my overseas studying time, I had to take the ferries from the place I lived to school each day for a while. Not mention the terrible home sick I had, the ending of relationship with my first boy-friend, when I struggled with every single little detail in life. But nothing could stop my love of the ocean and I enjoyed taking ferries on beautiful and stormy days. Watching the sun-rising or sun-setting, sailing by the magnificent city landscape and the awesome boats out on the sea, I promised myself that I knew I would overcome the difficulties... Years later, I started painting watercolors after moving to Bay Area in California, and the first one in m...
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Paintings with Auspicious Symbols V - Peacocks 孔雀東南飛

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I was inspired by the Chinese traditional folk art style to create a couple of peacocks with eight peony-flowers oil painting on canvas recently, which I named "Peacocks Flying Southeast 孔雀東南飛". "Peacocks Flying Southeast" is well-known to Chinese and is a phenomenal poem in Chinese literary history. It is one of the collections of the Music Academy (YueFu) formed by the Han Dynasty (196—219 AD) courts to gather literary works created largely for the common people. It was about a tragic love story between a young couple, who promised to love each other forever. Perhaps the morbid mother-in-law could not stand the daughter-in-law coming between her and her son. Eventually she broke up the marriage when her son was working out of the town. The young couple’s dream and promise of living together was shattered. Both their families forced them to marry someone else. So this young couple took their own lives, fulfilling their commitment of love in a different world....
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African American Portraits IV - Why I paint

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On this special day, I'd love share my story how I started painting African American portraits, because some viewers are always curious about what inspires me to paint them. I was told by many that the colors I painted were warm and soft, and the facial expressions were so well captured. I was asked why I kept painting them instead of others, or if I had a secret reason to do so... A lot of very interesting questions... First  I don't think that each artist has to have a hidden reason for painting.  I haven't been professionally trained in a real art school.  Painting Asian faces is challenging to me. I don't live in a neighborhood full of African Americans, but I enjoy their music and culture.  Their face expression can tell a story to a visual artist from China like me. One of my favorite novels is "Gone with the Wind".  I read it many times in Chinese, and watched the movie countless times.  In June 2007, I visited Atlanta, Georgia.  O...
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Original Art Story - The Colors of La Boca Argentina

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Colorful La Boca grew to become an Italian (mostly from Genoa) district of Buenos Aires, Argentina in a very short time in mid-19th-century. It used to be the area where Italian immigrants arrived, and settled in the poorest of conditions. Their houses were built by the leftover corrugated iron and other waste found in the nearby harbour and industry on the Riachuelo river. In order to make the neighbourhood more interesting, they decided to paint their houses in bright colors by using the leftover paint from boats - hence the many different colours that can be seen. Where first a small river flowed, the area that now is Caminito had tracks installed, and when those were not used anymore, this developed into an ugly, abandoned part of La Boca. There were several museums with paintings portraying its hard-working inhabitants in the shipyards and on the docks. Local artist Quinquela Martín painted the walls of the street, which now we know as Caminito (which means little path in Spanish)...
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Happy Mother's Day - The Red Shoes

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This piece won the 1st place in the Contest - Shoes on May 18th, 2012.  This painting was inspired by "The Red Shoes", which was first introduced to me by my mother. To me The Red Shoes has become a symbol of a career woman who has devoted her life to her job, or made some sacrifice in life. I painted this piece with my love for my mother.  Slowly I understand her more and more day after day. Happy Mother's Day! Inside and out Mom and I are so different, only one thing I have in common with her - a fast walk. She is outgoing, can make friends everywhere she goes through a very short conversation, rich or poor, old or young, higly educated person or without any education, even in different cultures, sometimes without language communication... She was beautiful and talented in theater arts, dancing, singing and acting. She was chosen to be an actress in a couple of movies when she was very young. Then she became a principal opera singer (western style) preformed o...
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Short-pose live male model drawings

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Always look forward to drawing nude models for their short poses. But I felt it was super challenging to draw this one. His body proportions were unique, long and slim. He posed in many twisty positions while standing, I only could try my best, many other artist said that they felt not easy to draw him too. Felt better by knowing I was not the only one that had a hard time. Hahaha... (April 26 2022)
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Papillon - "蝴蝶"(butterfly)

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Artistic depictions of butterflies have been used in many cultures including Egyptian hieroglyphs 3500 years ago. The ancient Greek word for "butterfly" is ψυχή (psȳchē), which primarily means "soul" or "mind". The Russian word for "butterfly", бабочка (bábochka), also means "bow tie". It is a diminutive of "baba" or "babka" (= "woman, grandmother, cake"), whence also "babushka" = "grandmother". (Research from Google,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly ) (Please click the image to enlarge) In our Chinese culture , two butterflies flying together symbolize love. Also, Butterfly Lovers is a famous Chinese folktale. In some old cultures, butterflies also symbolize rebirth after being inside a cocoon for a period of time. My birthday again, and I would love to share my butterfly story and captures with viewers, also I feel reborn as well:)! When we were kids, of cou...
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Happy Father's Day! - An Unfinished Still Life "Father Made me a Blue Desk"

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This is an unfinished still life painting in honor of my father, I painted for to express the hidden emotions that I wished to express on many Father's Days past. The desk no longer exists.  My father made it for me when I was in primary school, and painted with our favorite color blue.  I studied, reading books on this desk till I started high school, also learn drawing and painting for a short while. This painting is from a childhood memory - heavy and painful, clear and cloudy all in one breath. There are two bamboo pen stands my father carved with his beautiful calligraphy, the smallest one was made for me with his words of love and wish.  The bamboo flute in the stand was my father's instrument that he played once for a while when he was alive.  Luckily, I still have those objects with me. My father hand carved the two bamboo pen stands.  The smallest one was for me with loving words and best wishes inscribed upon it.  The bamboo flute was my fath...
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My Hummingbird Neighbors IV - Welcome Back II

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First, I check my last year's photos, of course there was no way that I could tell if it was the same hummingbird mother.  But I realized that it was exactly the same date- May 20th that I took first a couple photos of the baby birds last year.  What an interesting coincidence! So, I watched them more carefully, found out many differences between those two mother birds. This year's would rest on the potato tree, and spend a lot of time cleaning her feathers.  I didn't think that she fed her babies as frequent as the last one did.  Even the babies behaviors were quite different too.  Like mother, like children! They started to clean their feathers in such a crowed nest, one already flipped its wings, and would stand on the edge of the nest more often.  The most funny thing I saw that the baby birds pushed their poos out of the nest, squirting into the air.  Last year, the baby birds only sat in the nest, sleeping or waiting for being fed, the mother'...
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Short pose live male model drawing

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The model was late, so a female artist was managed to be a short pose model for a couple of minutes. Then a young and skinny guy came, he was the model tonight. He was long and slim. I found that it was quite challenging to draw him. But there were two young guy artists next to me drew in a confident and skillful way, quite mature for their age, they looked. They told us that they had been practicing drawing for ten years. I wondered why and realized it is the only way get better, keep practicing! (November 16 2021)
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