Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

Monday morning, it seemed that a little quiet in downtown Pleasanton. Before, I went to Harrington Gallery to pick up my exhibited painting. I did a quick Plein Air work at this historic and popular Ice cream store called Meadowlark Dairy. Each time there were many people in the queue waiting to buy ice cream. I tried it a couple of times, it's pretty good. I did a Plein Air painting of this store three years ago, painted the whole building, and from a different angle. Back then there were no umbrellas decorating the store. And of course I added more people in my painting this time from my memory. (June 12 2023)

Pretty happy that my Plein Air watercolor painting "Coastal Bungalow" was accepted for the 11th Annual Fresh Works Juried Exhibition.  Dropped off my work at the Harrington Gallery Firehouse Arts Center in Pleasanton, and drove to Alviso Adobe Community Park.  My husband found this place online last night, because I was looking for a place to paint on the delivery painting day. Excited because it is a totally new painting spot for me.  After parking my car and dragging my painting gear to the Adobe House, I instantly tried taking photos for painting ideas.  A guy came out of the house and told me that kids are not allowed to be in the photos by their parents.  Then I noticed that many children were having on site class, I guessed.  I showed him a couple of the photos I just took, after enlarged the images, there were a couple of blurry dots in the  distance, from the clothing colors could tell that the mini-dots were humans.  He did his job and told me those were OK. I set up

2020 Day22 Do you know the interesting history behind Meadowlark Dairy? Have you tried their dairy products yet? Each time, I saw people in queues in front of the Meadowlark Dairy as I was passing by. To satisfy my curiosity, I planned to do Plein Air, also because there was a demo of Stephen Berry's, organized by CWA at the Firehouse Art Center. It was gray with some sprinkling in the morning when I was on the road to Pleasanton. Luckily, it turned into beautiful with dramatic clouds. I didn't manage time well for my painting, some areas I had to leave them. Ran to the Firehouse Art Center. Stephen did a great demo, also his English was clear and easy to me to understand. But I heard my tummy was grumbling at the demo, realized that I didn't have lunch again. Haha, Chinese New Year is coming, there is plenty delicious food to enjoy then... Meadowlark was the first certified dairy in California founded in early 1900's. The dairy has been a drive-though since it o