Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

(March 16 2021) Overdressed today and painted at the location outdoors, just because it was very cold yesterday and frost was on the rooftops this morning. We even could see the snow on atop of the distant mountains. Airplanes flew overhead. That made me wonder when it will be safe to travel again... It has been exactly one year since the challenging COVID-19 lockdown started. Started with a small sketch, ended up to I painted a totally different angle of this yellow sailboat called "Golden Fin". So nice being outdoor with fresh air...

  I almost saved about 45 minutes on #101 to the location because of the pandemic and light traffic. Spent a lot of time drawing this "Harbor Patrol" boat, still I didn't get it right. I forgot that I moved a couple of times to my right so I could paint in the shade. Sun kept rising, finally I had to stand next to a big garbage bin. Took three hours to paint up to this point. I am not happy with the result of today's work, the composition and perspective bother me, but I am quite tired to fix it. My husband has working at home, going to prepare dinner earlier, not mentioned that I didn't have lunch...

2020 Day7 Over an hour driving instead of thirty minutes on 101 this morning. Sunny day, came to one of my favorite spots to paint boats. There were clouds, air planes flying overhead, boats, birds and reflections in the water, trees and mountains in distance... I thought a boat on the ground being fixed was an interesting subject. Tried wet into wet technique. I know it is one of the tougher parts to master - using the right amount of water to paint spontaneously. I was happy with the study result. Mike, who was fixing the boat, told me that boat would be here next week. So I think I will be back to paint it again next week. Hopefully it only rains during the evening time, California needs it🌧.