Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

A gorgeous day to join the Plein Air event hosted by the California Watercolor Association(CWA) yesterday. We met in the lovely town Danville and took a shuttle bus to America's only Nobel Prize winning playwright, Eugene O'Neill's house. He chose to live in Northern California at the height of his writing career. Honestly, I haven't read his plays yet, and it was my first visit to this charming town. I thought that I only had less than two hours of painting time to catch on the returning shuttle. I was in a rush to my first site of this historical barn for a fast drawing, then painting... I knew I wouldn't have time for second layers, so had to use a stronger and thinker colors from my palette. Suddenly I heard the shuttle bus starting the engine, actually there were other visitors wanted to go back, so they were leaving earlier. I rushed to pack my stuff and ran onto the bus, while my painting was still wet. I never thought that 14"x11" could be done l

It started a grey day, went to this paintable ranch, felt chilly. Did a small study sketch, it didn't help me for some reason. Well, I guessed that it was one of the days I just could not paint, two paintings in a row all failed. Sun came out, walked around the property, took some photos, young cows nearby looking at me. One goat mom with two kids they were calling each other... A wonderful Californian ranch life, the moment inspired me to paint the third one, and I added the goats into it after came home. (May 6 2019)

My 2nd time I've come here to paint at this beautiful private estate in the Santa Cruz mountains. The owner lady was warm and energetic! The 20 acre estate has three ponds, a beautiful home, amazing flower gardens, vegetable garden, redwood trees, and sculptures, etc.. She has a new project, there will be another lovely garden for hummingbirds and butterflies. I saw many kids' drawing beautiful cars. But I was struggling from the very beginning of the drawing, till came back home studio to fix this antique car. I kept telling myself that they were only shapes, but not sure why I had such a difficult time painting today. Please view my online galleries @  https://xueling-zou.pixels.com/index.html?tab=galleries

Drove down to the location, I was attracted by the red barn for my landscape plein air. It was on a private property, so the best I could do was drag my outdoor painting stuff through the grass making a fresh spring trail. It was a beautiful sunny breezy day after days of rain. I saw the cows grazing off in the distance on the rolling hills, and could hear their lowing. There were rosters and hens song drifted by from the nearby villages, What a peaceful morning in the countryside in California! I enjoyed painting the trees and the red barn I liked and ignoring other things I didn't want them in my work. Yes, I'm proud that I am able to have the freedom to be a creative artist instead of copying others, or copying what have been seen in exact sense. My painting went smoothly, I didn't have to retouch much after returning home.

I just want to share my landscape paintings of snow in watercolor, hope the beauty of snow brings you fond memories...

This title was inspired by a Beatles' song. I was introduced to many Beatles songs since I came. This is one of them inspired me, so I had decided to create a piece where this song guides me... Here is the link of The Beatles - All My Loving ( Close Your Eyes ):   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWvurnpKjE4 Living in California for twelve years now. Eleven years ago, I started painting, but seldom felt desire to paint the scenery where I live. Not long ago, I made a decision that I had to make myself feel happy about living here, accept it and being accepted. Two Weeks ago, I was so stuck by this piece I was creating, I painted over and over again... it was about 11pm at Friday night, I didn't even want to eat my dinner, still searching for idea how to create this piece to express my own feeling about the half-surreal, California scene in summer. Suddenly, I received an email from a FAA member.  It was the first time she emailed and asked me if I was looking for inspir