Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

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

After Plein Air at the Redwood City Port, I rushed to the art center for the drawing class. We had a new model, not sure her nationality, but she was pretty with darker skin tone. And her body shape is beautiful too. She is a nice stable model. But her poses were too similar. OK to me for practicing, other artists were complaining a bit.  (July 27 2022)

After a long day of Plein Air in Half Moon Bay, I drove back and bought a Mediterranean wrap for dinner and went to the studio for the short pose drawings.  It is one of my favorite things to do, though I was very tired at the end of this session.  A new professional model this night, she was very stable for each pose.  Got home it was almost ten pm, felt it was a productive day.  Actually spent almost three hours on the road, and at least one hour looking for inspiration... (July 19 2022 )

My terrible memory put a Plein Air exhibit organized by local Chinese artists group. I went to see the opening at their show, many great works of eight artists. I didn't want to miss the chance to Plein Air with them. I was well prepared from a hot summer place to be in a winter climate, though it was only 40 plus miles away at the Moss Beach. My car needed to be charged in Downtown Half Moon Bay, because there was no other charging stations nearby. I did my first painting there with my down jacket on. Didn't realized that it was getting crowed around noon, it was an empty town in the morning when I arrived. My painting got many compliment by the passengers. Prefect time, my work was done and my car was charged. It was a gray day, and drove several miles to the Moss Beach. My first time to be the location, and ate a little snacks in my car. I could tell the temperature was just like winter outside, and had my light wind blocker on, pull my gear up to the hill to meet ot

Today I was supposed to meet up and paint with other artists near the La Honda Open Space Preserve parking lot #22. But there were several road work construction projects on the way, not mention it was a narrow curvy road, and bike people were on the same road too. Not sure if the Google map or my car GPS wasn't clear on the directions, but I got lost many times before around #280 and in the mountains etc. not today. I knew I was late, so I decided to paint at a red barn that was on the way, which I wanted to paint it for years. Painted under my hatchback for a little bit shade, looked through the fence to the red barn, I was a little bit short to see the whole scene. And discover a died dead deer's body, poor thing, felt sorry about it... Weather was 10 degree cooler, about 70. I've painted many barns, today I painted it smaller and focused on the landscape instead of architecture. Though I didn't meet the others, I was peacefully painting alone by using a high

Tuesday always is my busy day of the week. I take two sessions of painting and drawing. As usual, long pose model in the afternoon for three hours, then after one and half an hour break, there was a short pose drawing session. I enjoy doing them both. Like many artists, of course I am struggling through each of them, and have been practicing since last September. I was quite happy to hear one of artists, she is an art educator, tell me that she could see I have made progress and am improving. Might be her encouragement, I did better drawings in the evening. We had very full studio, I wondered that our model she was a very professional one and very stable. It really helped me to draw her better. > Afternoon I painted the portrait of model, he was good model too. But I had difficult time to paint his red cloth, not only it was made of velvet, but the folds in the cloth changed after each break. One of my artist friends helped me at the end, she used one of my brushes, and we b

It was a hot day for Plein Air at the location. There were many geese around while were painting. Good practice in such a hot weather condition, glad that I did it though. I finished mine very quick and watched  the geese and other artist painting. (July 11 2022)

For some reason I had to force myself to go painting. After arriving, I felt much better just being inside the studio with others. My first time to paint her, beautiful black skin, and she is a good model. One of the artists tipped her a hundred dollar bill after this session. I regret that I didn't paint her on the first session, I won't able to finish it.  (July 7 2022)

Enjoyed drawing the double models, but it was very challenging. Generally, short poses do not allow us to have enough time to study like for a single model. So two models are even harder, and you have to add in the relationship between two of them. I did as much as I could, one model's body is rounder than the other. After all was done, I wish we could draw double models more often.  (July 5 2022)