Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

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 ...

My first time painting at this location.  A hot day, arrived a little early, but I realized that there wasn't any easy subject for me to paint. Did not want to waste the trip, so I dragged my painting gear and walked a while, then decided to paint from this angle.  Not enough variety of features to make the scene exciting but at least there were some white birds on the water. It was quite a annoying with so many bees buzzing around me.  I checked and cleaned up my paints in case they were attracting them.   After my painting was done and returned home, I started to wash my painting cloths.  Hopefully there won't be anything to attract insects next time. (August 28 2023)

I have been there a couple times before, but it was my first time painting at the location.  A gray day, drove on the winding highway 17 for about an hour, met up with several other artists at the parking lot of Natural Bridge State Beach. We found our own spots and started painting.  The spot I got was under eucalyptus tree branch, but at a higher level so I was able to see the Natural Bridge better. I asked a lady who carried a bucket, thought she was a fisherman.  But she told me that she picked up garbage on the beach as volunteer before her work.  So I drew her into my painting.  Later I saw another lady doing the same thing.  How wonderful! I removed my paints with honey medium already, as I'm not sure which paint attract honey bees. But I still got many bee visitors while I was painting. And a spider visitor too. Unfortunately, one of the artist got stung by a "yellow jacket". Seemed she was OK, moved to a new spot and painted another painting. I ...

October 31 Day 1 My second year participating the annual Plein Air. Very happy to see Laurie, the event chair, and other artists when I checked in, though it was gray and cold, only 53 degrees. Luckily all the participants got parking permits next to the City Hall. Dragged my stuff walked partway through town and met several painters. Decided to paint on the pier, and got permission from the store owner to set up my gear in front of his shop. There were three or four older guys chatting across from me, some passers by dressed up Halloween outfits complimented my work. Then I moved back to my car, drank water and ate some snack. Went back and started painting my second one, smaller size, but I liked the colors of the building. It was getting colder, watercolor paper wasn't drying, and took much longer to do my next steps. It was about near sunset, so I decided to hit the road for home. November 1 Day 2 It was raining heavily at the location... November 2 Day 3 Arrived there and fou...