Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

I have been thinking to paint at this location for a while. Today was perfect weather for outdoor painters, and I went there to paint with other local artists. Such a gorgeous place.  Each time I had a  hard time deciding where to start my work.  I even went upstairs to see the whole garden from above.  Almost every angle was paintable. Actually, I saw a guy who was doing flower arrangment on his knees.  I asked for his permisssion to take photos. he told me that he did this each Wednesday.  I would love to paint him someday in my studio.  Finally, I decided to paint from a similar spot as my first time painting there. Just like many years ago, there was a class of younger age children singing.  Tlhe teacher kept repeating the same song over and over... I thought I could remember the song, but I only remember the "miao miao miao" of the cat... LOL Some artist started earlier, and some of them were fast painters, they started theirs a little bit ealier before others were done

Four Chinese artists including me decided to go out and Plein Air together. In the morning it looked like a gorgeous sunny day from where I live. Drove into the park though and it became super-foggy and mysterious. There were two trees that looked very familiar, I realized that I painted at this location before and that today wasn't my first visit. We painted nearby the parking lot, which was a different prospective. Also shared our ideas to help each other improve the painting. The sun came out before we left the park. (January 20 2022)

Dec 3 Another gorgeous day. My second painting is at this historic location. Almost every angle was paintable, I had tough time to make up my mind. The alter was very old, two centuries old at least I guessed. I tried to design my work to have a strong focal point, painted a mother helping a girl going up the stairs, by combining the alter and people to make a story. Overpainted the alter. Jane, the organizer gave me great feedback. Finally, I had to erase the darker alter to balance the painting, but I am not happy with the result so far.  Painting loosely was not easy.

Gorgeous morning but caught in traffic. Arrived at the location almost 10:30am. Instantly love it, another very paintable and must come back location. There were a group young age kids learning music next to where I was painting. Was fun to hear their singing, made painting go through with joy. Ended up shopping at the Stanford Shopping Center. Came home with traffic all the way too... That was why I don't like going out during rush hour.