Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

Portrait study has been one of my favorite practices in painting. Personally, I am interested in studying African American faces, and have taken many photos for my reference. Their face structure and color tones are very expressive. I just have started painting from life models, most of them are Caucasians so far. I have found their skin tone is more challenging to me to paint, also the colors we see and paint indoors under light are so much different the everything we see outdoors. Honestly, the one on the left was after my third major correction on the original painting based on a 3-hour session.

An art collector from NYC just sent me this image - He framed one of my sold original paintings. I so appreciate the support and encouragement! My best Christmas gift so far :)! I do not usually frame my original artwork I have created because no one knows the interior of the collector. But this framing job is an excellent choice for sure! I have to share it, thanks! Framing is part of art. A nice frame is the "bridge" for connecting a piece of artwork to the environment. Most contemporary paintings were framed into much wider and simpler style. I love the choice, just because the painting and the wall have complementary colors and the highlight of the gold color on the frame transfers my contemporary painting to this traditional wall color/environment in a very classical and settled way. Does my original art look like it is displayed in a museum ;)? Happy holidays :)! 'Lonely Jazz' -  http://xueling-zou.artistwebsites.com/featured/lonely-jazz-xueling-zou.h

This series of African American portraits I painted is based on the portraits I captured at the Art & Soul Festivals in Oakland, CA since 2009. There were a few I did after visiting New York as well. I really enjoy studying African American face expression. Please let the people know if you recognize a familiar face, it might be you, your friend or family member. Thank you. Hope you will like my portrait art.

Chinese New Year is one of the most important traditional holidays and is celebrated on the first day of the year of the Chinese calendar (lunisolar). In China, it is also known as the Spring Festival, or "Lunar New Year". 2014 is the Year of Green Wood Horse in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar, starts on January 31. Like many other cultures, horse is one of Chinese favorite animals, horse is not only a symbol of traveling, but also a sign of speedy success. The horse is an intelligent animal. Horses need to be trained to become useful to humans. Interestingly, Chinese wouldn't let horses do farm work. Instead, all the farmland jobs go to the ox. This is because Chinese believe that horses can help human to win battles. Sitting on a horses back implies that the person is from a noble or higher ranking family. So people born in the Horse year usually care about their dressing, outlook and speech. So place a horse or many horse symbols around to en