Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

Happy Thanksgiving! "The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see."— Mary Davis Checked my emails in the morning, one of my retuning collectors said "Thanks again! The painting arrived already today. It’s really lovely!!! My husband loves it. We haven’t decided yet where exactly in our living room to hang it but for now it’s visiting the other one (attached)" Wow, it only took five days in the mail for this painting to travel from Silicon Valley to England. I was very happy to see my two old works next to each other.  The small piece was not created yet when the larger one had moved to its England's home.  The larger piece she frame perfectly to fit my vision when I created this contemporary painting.   She reminded me that tomorrow would be the Thanksgiving Day. Decided not to go out painting, though it was a nice day. Cleaned up the house, prepared a duck instead of turkey for tomorrow. Went out and had a simple sandwich lunch with my husband. We chatted abou...

A gorgeous day, went to Shoreline Park to meet other watercolor artists and paint together. Arrived at the Rengstorff House, there was a graduation party going on. Found a shady spot, set up my work station, then I found out that I didn't bring any watercolor paper. Haha, I was wondering why my gear bag was a slightly lighter in weight this morning.  So, I only completed my sketch.   Came back home and decided to organize my art supplies a little bit, those always occupy so much space.  I needed to find out if I have to buy more materials for Alameda Paintout Event coming up in August.  I would have plenty of  time to order online learning from my previous lessons.  Surprised to see a couple of my very old sketches.  They brought back memories, some of them were the doodles of my commissioned works. One of those I wrote down in "7 2006".  It was hard to believe about fifteen years already.  I still had my job working back then....

Last Saturday, October 10 was George's birthday, I brought this double portrait on a wet canvas finished only the night before to his booth at the local Farmer's Market. A big surprise for him! Everyone was happy, his two sons and a lady named Nami worked there, and some people who happened to be at the market at that time. George gave me a big beautiful bouquet of flowers. I felt satisfied by my effort. George and his wife were immigrants from Japan, raised their granddaughter Aika like their own daughter. Aika wanted me to paint a portrait for George's birthday. She told me that she loved both of them deeply. I was very grateful to get both Aika and Nami's trust, no matter what obstacles I would face, I must finish a decent portrait for them. It was only a one-week deadline for the commissioned work. Aika's grandparents were busy working, barely had decent photos together. I found that out after our agreement to paint an 11 inch by 14 inches oil painting, but actu...