Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

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)

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)

After Plein Air at the Redwood City Port, I rushed to the art center for the drawing class. We had a new model, not sure her nationality, but she was pretty with darker skin tone. And her body shape is beautiful too. She is a nice stable model. But her poses were too similar. OK to me for practicing, other artists were complaining a bit.  (July 27 2022)

After a long day of Plein Air in Half Moon Bay, I drove back and bought a Mediterranean wrap for dinner and went to the studio for the short pose drawings.  It is one of my favorite things to do, though I was very tired at the end of this session.  A new professional model this night, she was very stable for each pose.  Got home it was almost ten pm, felt it was a productive day.  Actually spent almost three hours on the road, and at least one hour looking for inspiration... (July 19 2022 )