Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

After a hot summer, suddenly the temperature dropped down, felt like autumn this week. This is scene I see daily. After over a decade I finally decided to paint it. Setting up my workstation, I just drew what I usually saw, then started to paint with watercolors. Because summer was still in my mind, I used a little too much water at the beginning, so the paper kept wet for a long time, especially after sunset. Liked the vegetation over the fence, it was the overrunning green. I thought it could be green plants climbing over the fence. I could not complete the painting, not only was the paper too wet, also I felt cold and it was getting dark. The next day, I did my final touch and finished it. Maybe try another one again in the future, such a convenient spot. (September 19 2024)

Got up with my lower back pain, and it was gray. I hesitated if I should go paint... I made up my mind to go after breakfast, just because it was a new painting location to me. There is always traffic on #101 now, no matter during the rush hour/hours or not. I got caught in it both ways. Felt happy to see that many artists already found their spots to paint after I got there and found this secret garden.   Beautifully designed building in Spanish Mediterranean-style architecture. I tried to find where I could paint, and realized that every turn I might block one of the artist's views. Finally, I stayed near the gateway area and painted this more complicated scene. A Chinese lady painter came back from Hawaii, I met her before padamic. Unfortunately her house was burned down their. She taught me some TaiQi for my back pain and report back on my progress after 2 weeks. She brought her 96-year-old father with her. I saw him sitting on a bench and drawing in the distance, I thou...

Besides being caught in not surprising traffic on U.S. Route 101 as usual, it was a nice breezy morning at the location. Walked around and instantly decided to paint those sailboats parked there. Might Be that I didn't paint enough boats at the event in Alameda, it was only ten days ago. It meant that I was physically recovered from exhausted. As an artist, I think that it is very important to be creative. So I decided not to paint all the boats parking in a row, and "moved" the warehouse building behind the three boats I painted. The composition of this painting looked better than exactly what was in front of my eyes. Saw several other artists painted there as well. Only talked a few, they seemed to all have found what they wanted to paint. (August 15 2024)

Such a charming harbor town with hills and houses which I always enjoy visiting.  Though it is not close to where I live, we were blessed on Memorial Day, I finially got to paint there. Sometimes you have to give up something to fulfill other ideas. I decided not to ge paddling on my friends' kayaks, watching them having fun in the water, and then struggling on my work. I thought it was worth it, just beacuse I had this idea for so long. Only it was a little chilly and windy (like our winter tempreture), but I was well prepared with my down jacket on. The clouds were dramatic, but I focused on a distant and interesting subject. I didn't even know what to call it Perfect timing, they all came back to shore, and my work was almost done, we had luch together and got to catch up. (May 27 2024)

Beautiful weather and went back to the Rose Garden in San Jose with a group of locacale artists.  This 5.5–acre Municipal Rose Garden is in full bloom with thousands of roses. It is named "America's Best Rose Garden." I have been here to paint a couple of times as I remember.  I hesitated to decide what to paint in such a lovely place.  I did a water fountain painting and the flowers arches before.   Saw another artist passing by, after chatting a little bit with her, I made up my mind to paint the artches again, and put her into my work. It still felt a little chilly in the shade while I was painting.  Another painter I just met named Allen was giving me a little feedback.  Always nice to hear other's opions. I wonder why I feel tired easier, the pollen made my eyes itchy and sensitive, and my whole body was fighting with it even though I was well protected with mask and sunglasses.  Finished around noon.  (May 13 2024)

Raining season finally has come.  It was the challenging part of Plein Air. Rained over night, a little unpredictable during daytime, not easy for painting outdoors. My husband pointed out the unique clouds outside our home window this morning. Fall colors were still there, also there were cooler colors in the distance with the fogginess. Wonderful for a watercolor work I thought. I brought my Plein Air painting pack upstairs, and started an "indoor" plein air landscape painting. Actually, I've wanted to paint the view outside our front of the window for over a decade of living at here, especially during the winter, when the scenery looks more beautiful after most of the leaves have fallen. There was an orange tree in the neighbor's backyard. I changed it to a pine tree, to carry some spirit of the coming holidays since there is no snow in our location. I enjoyed painting inside, didn't have to suffer from the cold or hot. windy or sunburn weather... but it ...

Good news to share for the coming up holidays, my figurative oil painting "Diary of Venus" won the 1st place in oil, juried by Pancho Jimenez at Great Bay Area Open (GBAO) "Potentiality/Actuality" biennial exhibition in the NUMU museum Los Gatos. There are many great works created by Bay Area based artists and the exhibition is open to the public at NUMU museum in Los Gatos until March 9 2024. I took a break from painting outdoors after Capitola Plein Air event. Of course I still paint at my home studio. Gorgeous day here in winter, it looked like fall. Though it was only 59 degrees, I felt warm in the sun. All foliage showing autumn leaf colors like yellow, orange, red, purple, and brown, which contrasted the blue sky and other plants of green were everywhere. It was great to go out and paint a day before the rainy season starts. Drove to Sunnyvale and the Heritage Park Orchard jumped into my mind. I think it is always inspiring when I drive on streets named af...

We always have an "Indian Summer" and it has been hot days for weeks. I decided to go to the Port because there was a subject I wanted to paint at the same spot, but from a different angle. I set up my work station and started on the drawing, which took me a little longer to finish. Because I wanted to try a different color palette, I hesitated to start. Also, there was only one boat next to the dock when I was here before, but many were parked there this morning. I have been thinking to use fewer colors for a long time, my first time to give it a try. The result seemed OK, better than I expected. Basically I wanted to focus on the value of the scene. It was getting windy around noon, and I finished up my work and packed up. Walked a bit around the port and discovered more subjects to paint. I will be back again for sure. (August 16 2023)

It was a nice day, but quite windy at the shore. Fortunately, I found a big tree to block the wind, and it worked very well. As I painted, a lady with her very sweet ten-year-old dog passed by and said Hi. The dog was friendly and didn't want to leave. I really wanted to pet her dog, but I knew that some paints are not good for animals and I had my rubber gloves on. So, I stopped and just watched them while chatting with the lady. After finishing the drawing, I hesitated on where to start with my work on the boats. Feeling a bit stuck, I decided to change to a bigger brush and covered the small details, then worked backwards to find the detail again. It looked better than when I started. As the wind grew stronger, it was time to go home. Last year, before the Alameda Plein Air Event, I painted at the Port of Redwood City. Unfortunately, I missed the application deadline this year, so I won't be able to attend it. (July 27, 2023)

We are lucky to have a program that allow us practice on live figures in the studio.  I have been working on drawing and painting from live models for a year and a half now.  Found out that good models are very important to artists when studying them live.   Tonight we had a new model, she was introduced as working towards her graduation at Stanford University.  What a smart student and working hard too.  Also she is a good model, deserved generous tips. Short pose drawings are challenging, never feel that you have enough time to draw one properly. Actually it really depends on the artist, how many years experience of the drawing skill, what the artist wants to experiment with etc.  Some of artists now draw on an electric device like iPad for digital drawing.  To me after I stopped working as a graphic designer, I don't have much interest in working on computer any more, because I feel I have had enough.  I really enjoy working with traditio...

Gorgeous day for outdoor paintings. While I was drawing, a train was running on the railway, I took short video. I didn't know how many cars the train carried, but it ran at least ten minutes long. Struggling with the layout, and the details of the historic train I was painting. Came home I realized that I didn't need that much. Just cropped it, and it looked much better. And would you believe, I found some charming artwork in the public bathroom. Several years ago I went to this historic charming town for Plein Air. Walked around and found a good spot to set up my painting station, then found out I didn't bring any paper at all. LOL, had to go home... (October 24 2022)

Had an orange haired model for today's long pose session. I hadn't painted a live model in about one month as I mentioned in my last post.  The model was stable, I was able to layout her pose on another used canvas panel.  Other artists thought that it would be confusing for them if they saw the old oil painting in the background.  It didn't bother me, I could ignore it.  Mostly I used the pallet knife, but I didn't use it for the background; I will change it later.  The next day I spent two more hours correcting a little bit, but forgot the background, lol...  (October 11 2022)

After one month break, I am back to the studio to sketch live models. I didn't take break, just that there were many things to get caught up on for my solo exhibition.  During the preparation time, not everything went through smoothly, though I did think carefully.  Our model was late, I felt that I could catch up with some speed at the beginning, but was even even a little slower for grabbing my drawing papers. It was an OK session, practicing drawing often is necessary to me.  I can feel the improvement after one year of going.  Some artist told me that she had kept up her drawing for over twenty years, and never stopped.  (October 11 2022)

My first time to this location delivering two of my Plein Air painting for the up coming POP group exhibit at the Manor house "Twin Pine Art Center", Our reception will held from 2 pm to 4 pm on October 9.Nice to see our organizer and the other artists. We instantly became volunteers, helping move our paintings from one room to the other. There were several shows of local artists', I checked them out upstairs and downstairs. Julia and I painted in the park. There was a memorial service at the lodge. We guessed that the people might be from Hawaii, because we could hear the music. There was a huge tree in front of the lodge, so it became my subject to work on.  Julia painted near the creek. Seems that summer isn't over yet with all the heat we felt. Caught up a little bit with her after our work was done. Unbelievable it was the last day to September. (September 30 2022)

Gorgeous day in Carmel, we decided to paint the narrow road scene on the hill behind the Highland Inn where we stayed for two nights. It was just across the narrow road off the the parking lot of the hotel.  Afternoon light shone on a white house hiding deep into all the trees looked intriguing.  We wanted to paint it since our last trip. Set up our easels, straight away working on the painting.  A young woman came and told us that we were on her property, the little parking area off the narrow road.  And also she said that she would call the hotel and come out to check us too ...so we left, then did the rest of our 1st paintings inside our room, lol...  Wednesday morning we got up late, and went to Garrapata State Park.  Immediately I saw the sign of MPAPA's sign, so I knew that the local Plein Air painters were painting in  the park.   I saw Teresa first, she was from the South Bay area like us.  She was working on a beautiful pastel p...

We had a new model again, seemed that she had brought a lot of energy into the studio.  It is interesting that I have found that each model's pose really has his or her own character. They are all unique and special Of course I only had this short pose drawing practice for less than a year. Wish I could draw faster and then could have drawn their special character into my work. (September 13 2022)

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)