Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

We've had an Indian summer for days now, around 100 degrees Fahrenheit. It was challenging to go out. But I didn't want to miss the live model long and short posts today for six hours at the studio. It was showing 105 Fahrenheit degrees in my car when I was driving on the highway after lunch. There were many artists there, so was the model. Some of them already working on their second session. I started as quick as I could, it was my first session, and it will be a different model next time. Working on a used canvas panel 12"x16", I noticed that I had problem to mark the measurements, but my eye "measured" better. So I followed what I saw to get the sketch done, and continued with the portrait. The model told us that he had American Indian blood, but he didn't know what percentage. wondered why his skin tone looked Indian. Three hours isn't enough time for sure, but I know it was only a study. Anyway, I will do a little correction at home la

There were many areas that bothered me on Tuesday's portrait study, so I decided to correct it. Worked on the panel for an hour.  Finally, I erased it all and spent a whole day repainting it. Checked my previous work, the last figurative portrait from a live model was nine weeks ago. No wonder I couldn't paint the way  I used to, lol  (August 26 2022) Can't believe that it was nine weeks ago that I did my last oil painting live model session study. Today's model was a good one too, but my process was much slower, and result was different than I expected. The short pose live model was late, a couple of people did several poses for us. I felt my sketches came out better than last week. Not kidding, every artist must keep practicing daily to see long term improvement.  (August 23 2022)

Our favorite model Leigh brought a bench, a stool, decorative stand, a backpack of clothing, an umbrella, a large folding fan and a huge pot of live plants. There were several trips back forth between her car and the studio. And she is never late, actually she always arrives earlier. One of the artists said that she was hired for a three-day workshop, she had been drawing and painting her four days in a row. Can you imaging that? Leigh was a professional ballerina in the San Francisco Ballet, her poses are stable and she always had her costume well prepared. How could she not be our favorite model.  (August 31 2022)

Attended the evening short pose live model sketch practice again after three weeks. Definitely my brain and hands were not as coordinately as quick as before. After a while I was getting a little bit better. New model's poses were nice, and she was stable too. (August 16 2022)

After Plein Air at the Redwood City Port, I rushed to the art center for the drawing class. We had a new model, not sure her nationality, but she was pretty with darker skin tone. And her body shape is beautiful too. She is a nice stable model. But her poses were too similar. OK to me for practicing, other artists were complaining a bit.  (July 27 2022)

After a long day of Plein Air in Half Moon Bay, I drove back and bought a Mediterranean wrap for dinner and went to the studio for the short pose drawings.  It is one of my favorite things to do, though I was very tired at the end of this session.  A new professional model this night, she was very stable for each pose.  Got home it was almost ten pm, felt it was a productive day.  Actually spent almost three hours on the road, and at least one hour looking for inspiration... (July 19 2022 )

Tuesday always is my busy day of the week. I take two sessions of painting and drawing. As usual, long pose model in the afternoon for three hours, then after one and half an hour break, there was a short pose drawing session. I enjoy doing them both. Like many artists, of course I am struggling through each of them, and have been practicing since last September. I was quite happy to hear one of artists, she is an art educator, tell me that she could see I have made progress and am improving. Might be her encouragement, I did better drawings in the evening. We had very full studio, I wondered that our model she was a very professional one and very stable. It really helped me to draw her better. > Afternoon I painted the portrait of model, he was good model too. But I had difficult time to paint his red cloth, not only it was made of velvet, but the folds in the cloth changed after each break. One of my artist friends helped me at the end, she used one of my brushes, and we b

Enjoyed drawing the double models, but it was very challenging. Generally, short poses do not allow us to have enough time to study like for a single model. So two models are even harder, and you have to add in the relationship between two of them. I did as much as I could, one model's body is rounder than the other. After all was done, I wish we could draw double models more often.  (July 5 2022)

One of the artists suggested to that I start a new painting of the model after the long pose session last week. So I changed the painting angle of the model for this session. A lady artist came to me and told me that my work looked like an impressionist French female artist's work, but she couldn't remember her name. I wonder who that was? I thought my work looked more like expressionism. And I recently switched back to my original style plus several month practice. Glad that several artists told me they liked it. We had two different female models worked for us during the evening figure drawings. The second one was new to me. One of my artist friend she brought a book teach how to draw to me, after she saw me struggling through the session last Tuesday. How sweet of her, she even instructed me how to go through the book during our break. Always treasure friendship, who doesn't?  (June 14 2022)

Not sure why I could not get myself motivated, the laziness was all over my mind and body. Some of my works are half way done, I keep reminding myself that I should fix or finish them... Day by day I sink into the sofa, barely move around, and found all kinds of excuses for myself to do nothing. Till I noticed that I had gained a couple pounds again. It makes a big difference for me - each time I gain weight, I loose motivation. After Memorial Day, I started doing exercise again, dragged myself to the art center studio and took the second long pose session of the same live model to finish this portraiture. And I continued on to the evening short pose session. Found my arm even hard to reach where I wanted to draw. Unbelievable that only few ponds could cause so much unwillingness all over me. But glad I did it! (May 31 2022)

I was away for eight nights in May, missed several portraiture practice sessions in the studio. We were quite lucky to have Leigh back for our afternoon long post and evening short pose model. She dressed up in an evening gown with matching jewelry for the long pose - turquoise, my favorite color. And her hair was "twisted" up. It was a crowded in the studio, I painted behind two other artists, there was only a small area I could peek through to see the model. I complained a couple of times, just because those two artists moved a little bit and blocked my view. After our afternoon session was done, I realized that the colors I used were too saturated. And several artists stayed for the evening session. We brought our dinner boxes for a simple meal. There was full house in the evening session too, her ballerina posses were lovely. And she looked tired. Enjoyed painting and drawing her.  (May 24 2022)

Seems that working in the studio and Plein Air outdoors are quite different in many ways. Went to Carmel Plein Air painting with my friends for four days, missed the last session for short-pose live model drawing. So I found that I had difficult time to draw. No matter two minutes, five minutes or ten minutes, I could not draw fast and correctly enough, didn't have time to draw a leg or arm. This model was good, he worked very hard, I saw his body shaking during the pose. Of course we all pay good tips to our models. (May 10 2022)

Always look forward to drawing nude models for their short poses. But I felt it was super challenging to draw this one. His body proportions were unique, long and slim. He posed in many twisty positions while standing, I only could try my best, many other artist said that they felt not easy to draw him too. Felt better by knowing I was not the only one that had a hard time. Hahaha... (April 26 2022)

We were all ready, but the model hadn't arrived yet.  So the organizer asked for two people there to be temporary models.  Our model was African American female tonight, she lives in Oakland, and must have been in bad traffic for arriving 30 minutes late. When she started her pose, wow, each one was so inspiring.  Just a great model for sketching. Elegant lines and her poses were so interesting and dynamic.  Wish could have her more often. (April 19 2022)

It was challenging to draw this new male model, not sure why. But the other artists said the same. I think that it is harder to draw the male than the female body. Lots of practice but somehow never feel enough though. (April 12 2022).

April 5 happened to be Tomb Sweeping Day on the Chinese Calendar. In our culture, people usually go to visit their ancestors' tomb with flowers and clean off the dust. No one can get visas to travel home, and our visas were no longer valid in China because of COVID 19. I haven't visited my in family almost three years. I decided to paint at Hakone Gardens Japanese Garden in Saratoga.  There were many cars already parked at the entry to the place next to the Big Basin Way.  Quickly I parked my car at the last available space, because there was limited parking near by the entrance. My instinct was right, but I had to roll my painting stuff up the hill to the entrance.  My legs felt sore and I felt short of breath for walking up there with all my painting stuff.  There were so many people, more than 95% of them were Asian, I guessed that it was free day, and many people could not go to sweep their ancestors' tombs.  Not sure how my ancestors thought about me and rest of overse

We all love this ballerina model, her pose was amazing!  She not only brought her tutu and point shoes for posing outfit, and brought us her inspiration.  I enjoyed drawing her, wish we could see her again soon. (March 29 2022)

We had one of our favorite model doing short pose to night, beautiful African American professional figure. Though I was tired, but was inspired by each of her pose  (March 22 2022)

There were two female live models that did a short-pose tonight. Of course it was more challenging to draw them together in minutes, and had to pay attention for the relationship between them. Felt quite tired, not sure if it because of the time changing.  (March 15 2022)

It was International Women's Day. We had a new male model from Santa Cruz tonight.  Some of the new models couldn't stay still, but it seemed that he was an experienced one.  He stayed posed, even his gestures retained the same position, those were very important for drawing in short period of time to us! (March 8 2022)