Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

April 20 2021, the first egg was discover in the nest :). Time flies so fast, we moved in August 2008 and have been living in the same house for over twelve years now. After we moved in, I picked up a DVD from the local library about a hummingbird's story and learned that the hummingbird mother is always a single mother from the onset of pregnancy. Then I started planting some plants to attract hummingbirds. In spring of the 4th year we happily discovered a hummingbird mother had built a nest and raised her babies on a tree branch outside our window. I took so much footage, even caught one of the first flights of her babies. For the next couple of years I watched the hummingbird mothers successfully raising babies from spring to early summer, including the final training before the babies became independent. April 22 2021, the second egg was laid in the nest. For the next several years they weren't able to finish their motherhood experience unfortunately; one year the win

Some people believe that there is no winter in California. Even if it is not as cold as it is on the East Coast, we have less activities during our winter time. There are a couple months of cold raining days, a couple of frosty days, and the temperature can drop down to about 30 F degrees. I was quite lucky to have this opportunity to watch and learn more about how a hummingbird mom raised her little family during May in previous years. After coming back at the end of April last year, I had no idea what happened but only saw an empty hummingbird nest. Was the mom successful raising her babies? Hummingbird mom is the most independent mother I think. She searches for a safe area, builds a nest, hatches her eggs (usually two), feeds, raises and trains her babies all by herself after pregnancy. Finally she has to push the grown-up babies out of the home area at the end of raising them. It didn't rain enough last winter. Not all the autumn leaves fell off the trees and we cou

There are many beautiful portraits that have visually showed us the subject's personality, history and culture.  I think facial expression is another very interesting subject in art.  That is why I love to study it.  I do it differently than some artists who just copying a photo.  I'd rather to know a little bit more about my subject before I start painting.  Here are some some portraits I painted and the stories behind them.  Please visit my online gallery at:  http://xueling-zou.artistwebsites.com/galleries.html to see more. Lady from Bangladesh was the portrait I painted in March 2011. We used to be neighbors for a short while. Her name is Tahmina. She was the mother of three very nice and well-educated boys, with such a sweet character. One early morning, I saw her dressed this lovely traditional pink/magenta sari in the garden, the morning light went through her veil, shining on her face... I went back and grabbed my camera immediately and took a couple of photos. Aft