Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

Add caption 2020 Day15 40% chance to rain, then I decided to stay at home. Thought I could paint my aloe vera, but I just discovered they were so sick from the rain without sun. It was one of my most favorite plants, and I used it so many times to recover from sunburns, cuts or cooking burns. I felt bad that I didn't take good care of my plant, though most of them were succulents. Spent an hour or two to clean up. Tried not to upset myself. Then I found a rat pot holder I bought sometime ago that I forgot about it. The Year of Rat is coming in 10 days. Did a watercolor black and white sketch before starting to use it.

2020 Day8 What a busy day staying at home! Thought about how to create an auspicious work for the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year - the Year of Rat. Actually I had been thinking about it since last Christmas. I used to be very good and fast when I worked as a graphic/web designer a long time ago... I had forgotten how much I had to go through with the design process, it made my head ache. Focused on the limited items I had, using traditional colors, meaningful symbols, and symmetrical layout. I enlarged an ancient coin, which means prosperity, wrote Fu, Lu, Shou and Xi, those mean Luck, Prosperity, Longevity and Happiness on the coin in an ancient writing style. I only had one little rat, so I drew one, then flipped it to draw it again on the other side, made them look like they are communicating to each other by changing the shapes slightly, so one looks like a male, the other a female. They could be a couple, lovers or love at first sight. My most challenging part was to draw tw