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



(May 11 2021)

I painted almost at the exact the same spot on April 5 2018. I pulled out my old work to compare with today's. Is there any improvement? Of course it wasn't painted on the same sunny day like today.
I did plan to paint at San Francisco Botanical Garden today. And I found out my car didn't get enough juice to cover the mileage. So came back to paint at one of my favorite local places again. It wasn't as quiet as usual, some construction was going on. One of the guys came to check me out if I had gotten my professional photography permission, but fortunately OK to paint here. Started a small sketch, then worked on my regular Fabiano 140p cold press watercolor paper. Forgot to mention how much I liked my new purchased Fabiano paper, I can feel the improved quality of the paper, especially the "tooth" of the surface to hold on water and colors. It is getting hot here, over 80 degrees around noon. There were mosquitos flying around and bothering me. There was a volunteer garden cleaning lady working in this charming court yard, she offered me some insect spray, then I was able to concentrate to finish my work. She is another of living angel.


April 5 2018 Plein Air @ Villa Montalvo Saratoga CA

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

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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Quick studies before the Annual Alameda Plein Air Evert

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Redwood City Port seems like a perfect location for practicing painting on a windy day. A year ago I painted at the location a couple of times. It was windy in the afternoon. I found a short tree to paint under to block a little wind. Took me almost an hour to finish the drawing. I tried to paint the kayak, but it was removed from the people working there. Lucky I had my reference photo. Not sure why I love painting fishing boats Later the owner of the boat next to it came to me, he took a photo and wanted me to paint his boat someday... Rushed to the drawing class...(July 26 2022) I have to get ready for the Annual Alameda Plein Air event, so I drove to the Campbell Community Center to practice, but I didn't know what to paint. Walked around and saw the Campbell Pool, then I knew it would be a good subject to practice. Found a corner and set up my stuff. For the composition purposes, I had to "move" and "reset" several little details. It wasn't a...
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Capitola Plein Air 8th Annual Art Festival 2023

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Laurie Hill, the organizer of Capitola Plein Air Evert, gave me a personal orientation before I started.  Weather was perfect, I was in a rush and felt excited to start working, but forgot my parking permit.  No worries, I saw a flower stand on the corner of Monterey St and Park Ave.  A Mexican Lady carried a baby, and two others looked like teenage girl helpers. Surprisingly, their business was very good.  Every several minutes someone stopped by and bought flowers. Not mention it was Tuesday.  I thought people usually buy flowers before the weekend. After my work was done, the younger teenager asked me if it was OK to take a photo, the lady with the baby she talked to me in Spanish, which I didn't understand. They took photo, then we had photo together. Next day, I met a newly wed couple from Texas while I was painting outside Zelda's on the Beach.  They seemed very interested in my work.  I gave them the Sunday exhibition info, hopefully they would ...
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Work in Progress, live models studies - long and short pose

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Arrived 30 minutes earlier at the studio, because the model is one of my favorites. Our model she is African and Irish mixed. Today she wore a long white silk gown which contrasted her skin, very beautiful. But I didn't get the spot where I wanted to paint. She looked exactly straight to me, and her hands and feet were all together in the middle. Depends on my years of Plein Air experience, I know I must make decision quickly. Almost the same moment she moved her hand to touch her face, I captured the moment, so I could had a reference photo to paint while her two hands were positioned one horizontal, and one vertical. I already had done two portraits of her before, both were 12"x16". Today I worked on a new colored panel 16"x20". During the work, I noticed that her gown was quite challenging to paint, because of the white silky and reflective material. So I just focused on her whole shape, and used my left over color palette. Three hours was too shor...
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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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Alameda Plein Air Paint Out -16th Annual Event 2021

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Alameda Plein Air Paint Out 2021 - my 3rd time here Joined the 16th Annual - Alameda Plein Air Paint Out Event from August 2 to 7. It was my third time joining the Plein Air event since 2018. Didn't apply in 2020 as Coivid-19 changed the world. August 1 in the evening, I moved into my host lady Ros' house on Bay farm island. I was so welcome by her, her dog Sparky and three of her bunnies. Not a good first night's sleep, might be the airplanes over head or the new place. Met many artist friends while we checked into the event the next morning. Ross' friendly dog Sparky Always started my first painting at Grand Marina, actually I painted at Fortman Marina at the Alameda Yacht Club. It was a gorgeous morning, met the Club manager Mark. He showed me the watercolor  paintings his grandmother and his mother did in his office and told me that he was an artist too. People were passing by and gave me some compliments. I remembered to give them the flyers inviting them t...
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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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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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Plein Air @ Orchard Heritage Park Sunnyvale CA 加州風景寫生

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Good news to share for the coming up holidays, my figurative oil painting "Diary of Venus" won the 1st place in oil, juried by Pancho Jimenez at Great Bay Area Open (GBAO) "Potentiality/Actuality" biennial exhibition in the NUMU museum Los Gatos. There are many great works created by Bay Area based artists and the exhibition is open to the public at NUMU museum in Los Gatos until March 9 2024. I took a break from painting outdoors after Capitola Plein Air event. Of course I still paint at my home studio. Gorgeous day here in winter, it looked like fall. Though it was only 59 degrees, I felt warm in the sun. All foliage showing autumn leaf colors like yellow, orange, red, purple, and brown, which contrasted the blue sky and other plants of green were everywhere. It was great to go out and paint a day before the rainy season starts. Drove to Sunnyvale and the Heritage Park Orchard jumped into my mind. I think it is always inspiring when I drive on streets named af...
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