Plein Air @ Capitola Wharf Capitola CA 加州風景寫生


Rainy season keeps delaying in San Francisco Bay Area. I thought that I'd better paint outdoors as the weather allows me. After checking the weather report around, I decided to go to Capitola, one of my favorite charming small towns not too far away. Caught the road work on Route #17, it was about half past ten when I arrived. There were so many subjects I would love to paint at the location, and it was a perfect day, about 70 degrees. Flowers were still blooming, birds were hanging in the bushes. Still felt like during spring... Less people on the pier, of course that was my final decision to set up my stuff and started to work. Met two people, one was Len, he walked on the pier back and forth several times. And Bob was tricycling around with his super large surf board, waiting to meet friends. Got many compliments from people passed by. Walked around and took many reference photos after my work was done. Tired when I returned home but enjoyed such a lovely long day!  (Dec. 7 2020)




San Francisco Bay Area CA Capitola, 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

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

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Dream in the Night — Interpreted by Xu YuanChong Abed, I see a silvery light, I wonder if it's frost aground. Looking up, I find the moon bright; Bowing, in homesickness I'm drowned. 静夜思 — 李白 床前明月光， 疑是地上霜。 举头望明月， 低头思故乡。 (Please click the image to enlarge) This poem written by Li Bai (701 – 762) who was a major Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty poetry period  - China's "golden age" of classical Chinese poetry (  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai ). It was one of the first classical poems I was taught before my primary school. Of course, I would not know the meaning at that young age. The older I get and the farther I live from home, the deeper I feel this poem, which is more often appearing in my head. Hiding my tears used to be part my character. But now, I can no longer control it behind my eyes whenever I think of it... Another Mid-Autumn Festival is coming again, which is a popular lunar harvest festival celebrated by Chinese...
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Plein Air @ Baylands Nature preserve Palo Alto CA 加州風景寫生

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Palo Alto Baylands Nature preserve is one of those places that has been inspiring most California Plein Air painters for years. I went to paint several times, hadn't found a better way to express it then through watercolor media yet. It was a little cooler today, grey with dramatic clouds in the sky at the location. Felt a little lost with my new color palette, could not follow my usual watercolor's flow to loosen up. And Alizarin Crimson made a small mess, not sure why it was so liquid?  Anyway, I painted a scene  moving objects around a bit, and I wish I would be inspired by this place to return and paint again someday soon.  Good day for practicing.
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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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Original Art Stories - Tribute to Whitney Houston

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Watching "The Bodyguard" in the movie theater, my English was still very limited to understand every piece of the story back then. But I was so moved by Whitney Houston's beauty, talent and emotion expression, especially the song "I Always Love You" - her magical singing stuck into my head forever... I did hear the music of National Anthem before. After the movie, I had found out Whitney Houston's incredible powerful voice in the recording of that song. Her Welcome Home Heroes concert with HBO for the soldiers fighting in the Persian Gulf War and their families made the whole nation feel proud of her. Her concert gave HBO its highest ratings ever after that! Many records of hers not only rocked the music world, and also introduced me into her music world! Since then, I realized I became a fan of hers. I started paying more attention to other kinds of music besides classical, like jazz, blues, etc.. We lost a beautiful artist, a talented singer, an...
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Plein Air @ Downtown Woodside CA and Short-pose male live model drawing

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It wasn't a perfect day for Plein Air, I brought my work stuff and went to check where I could paint. All just because of my curiosity about downtown Woodside. Not easy to find a parking spot, walked around a little bit. Not sure why it seemed to me that this tiny downtown was so interesting to come and check out. Might be the day I got lost in the mountain for an hour, and finally I found some people were in the town. Parked my car off the street. And I decided to paint the interesting building called the Firehouse Bistro, looked like a historic building to me. But there wasn't anything I could find on Google out, only the restaurant. I spent a lot of time working on the sky, later found out it wasn't necessary since the sky was behind on my painting. Caught up a little sunlight, it really did help me to understand the relationship of each part of building and surrounding construction. Great exercise, would be back on a sunny day to paint! In the early evening ...
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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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Plein Air @ near Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport CA

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Weather report said that there was a storm coming today. The rain stopped this morning, I went out without a target for outdoor painting. Got lost in an industrial area nearby the airport, instantly I saw many interesting subjects to paint. But it wasn't easy to find a parking spot. I painted next to a camper parked on the sidewalk. The person owned it really made it looked like a home. There was a solar panel connected, and there were garden stuff, like potted plants, outdoor cook etc.  The clouds looked very unique, but they were not easy to paint on such a gray day.   Many airplanes flew overhead making a very loud sound, I wondered when I could get started traveling again?  After my work was done, I packed and it started  raining again.  Felt lucky that my painting and I didn't get a single drop, perfect timing without knowing in advance, lol...
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Plein Air @ Alviso Marina County Park San Jose CA

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It was not a warm morning at the location. I got to one of my favorite painting spots and decided to paint again at this location. Couldn't remember how many times I've painted there before. Still, I started with a thumbnail, almost the same layout from my memory as before. I tried to use less water as it was hard to dry given the weather. One lady walked by me to complement my work, but she she surprised me and immediately apologized and told me that she was just walking by. Later some male voice was even louder behind me saying that it was a beautiful painting. That really scarred me a lot. Turned around and I saw two policemen driving by, they were kind and smiled, apologized as well. Then asked me when I started my work. I didn't really pay much attention, told them around nine o'clock. After they left, I realized that it might not have told them the correct time, they might misunderstand me and think I was not honest enough, oh, no.... Saw several other artis...
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