Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

I really did not want to stay indoors on such a gorgeous autumn day. A new location I just discovered on Skyline Blvd in Woodside was on my mind, and had to give it a try. It was challenging and fun driving on the winding Moody and Skyline roads. A couple of sharp turns were about 300 degrees. Tasting room was closed on Tuesday, but that special deep dry grape smell was with me while I was painting in a very peaceful spot in front of the pond. Just love this harvest season! Will be back to paint again!  (November 5 2019)

Sunday I went to support all the Plein Aire Artists in Capitola. Saw old artist friends and met new ones. Many beautiful artworks painted at that location in the past few days. I got inspired, especially listening to the judge Paul Kratter's educational speech when awarded the winning artists. He shared his rich art knowledge with us on each winning piece and why it was the best of his choice in the category. I was so happy that a couple of my friends had won the awards, and some artworks were sold! Monday was warm, painted the front landscape of the Santa Clara City Hall. The bronze statue of St. Clare was sculpted by Ann Van Kleeck in the 1960's. I didn't need to use my tripod, put my easel on the decorative low garden wall in front of a restaurant since the restaurant wasn't opened yet. I think I would like to paint locally instead of spending hours driving on the road. Once in a while is OK. Plein Air should become visual artist's life style. What do you think?...

I caught a real live spider inside my house on Halloween morning, and released it to outside in natural. Having learned my lesson yesterday, I painted at the nearby location today. Easy day, leaves have started changing colors, noon still felt hot in the sun. Got to love the weather, but we do need rain to save more families🙏, stop the fires and for the agriculture as well.

A few sketches I did when traveling on the train in Spain weeks ago. I really enjoyed people watching there, wish everyone could be my model. Today I planned to paint at the San Mateo Memorial Park. My car GPS didn't give the location, I only could follow Google maps, started all in red on the high way 280. Turned on the route 84, everything looked so beautiful through the dappled sunlight, especially all the tall redwoods. I enjoyed driving on the winding roads, thought that my driving skill has definitely improved since I had started doing Plein Air. An accidentally-killed dead deer's half body was left on the roadside. Inside the mountains, Google maps asked to make U turns a couple times, I knew I hadn't arrived, didn't follow. It was my first time to be at this location and I finally arrived to a sign announcing that the park was closed due to a high fire situation. Bummer... Of course it was reasonable since the Sonoma big fire hasn't been put down yet. ...

Drove to Guglielmo Winery in Morgan Hill this morning. The air was chilled, temperature suddenly dropped down 20 plus degrees, though felt the summer only the day before. Excited to try my birthday present Escoda brushes bought in Barcelona. Said "Hola" to a worker looked like a Mexican guy, he responded in English. I laughed at myself to use one of the few words I knew in Spanish not to the right person. Did two quick watercolor sketches, and if possible to take a longer time to get to used to the new brushes I believe. Left around noon, it was still feeling dry and hot in the sun.  (October 28 2019)

Gorgeous day came to Los Altos History Museum to paint, spent a lot of time to find a parking spot. A quick work, then I was invited to an artist/architect's beautiful house for a lunch party near by. So much food in a lovely and well designed home. She designed her own home, how cool it was! Enjoyed the rest of day!

  Arrived at the location around 10am, just tried to avoid traffic in the morning. This unique building of the Laine's Bites shop was the one I had wanted to paint for a while, set up my station under a young tree with enough shade. A guy was sweeping the street, looked like he was trying to clean off all the dirt from the ground. There was so much dust in the air, I felt it hard to breath, my street parked car was covered with dust very soon. It was OK, I kept telling myself, and focused on my work... Maybe an hour later after the sweeping guy left, a spaying water truck started to clean the street. It was the most busy, small T-junction with endless huge trucks passing by both ways with the loudest squishing noises of heavy metal sounds. Wow, it was my first time to deal with this kind of situation, most of time I had to wait for the trucks to pass by, just because I want to see the object I was working on. The sweeping truck was back and forth at least 10 times in front of ...

Happy 重陽節 Double Ninth Festival! Today is Double Ninth on Chinese calendar, traditionally we usually 出遊賞秋 enjoy the autumn, 登高遠眺 overlook the high, 觀想菊花 admire the chrysanthemum, 遍插茱萸 insert the Cornus, 吃重陽糕 eat the heavy Sun Cake, 飲菊花酒 drink the chrysanthemum wine, and especially respect all the elders. It sounds a little bit complex, certainly we couldn't do much here. Came to paint Villa Montalvo was ideal to overlook the high. It was a perfect day for hiking, and I was always amazed by the creation of nature. Only saw a few people on the trail. What a great place to look at Silicon valley from the top of the mountain. It has been nineteen years since I have been living in the valley and this country. I never liked here for a long time, until I started painting outdoors I guess. I enjoyed visiting and painting here. Light had changed, roughly finished my painting, will be back again for sure.

My first time to paint this gorgeous hidden winery. After the owner Vivian showed us around with her friendly, four-year old super active border collie dog, I decided to paint grapes hanging on the vines, actually left on the vines. It was quite hot in the sun, I had to use my umbrella though it was only 45 degrees before I left home in the morning. This cute dog was sitting not far from me, one of his paws sat on small sticks. Of course I understood all he wanted was to find a way to play. I tried focusing to my painting. After a while, he lost his patience and started barking. Couldn't stop at the moment, watercolors dried on paper so fast, I had to continue... Roughly finished, on the way back to my car, I saw him was all wet, just swam or did something fun in the pond I guessed. I picked up a small tree branch from the ground, didn't throw away very far, than I found a small piece of wood chips to throw. He was so happy to pick it up, and carried it inside his mouth runni...

It was beautiful in the mountains, moistness in the distance felt connected with the dramatic clouds. The temperature suddenly dropped down overnight from a hot Indian summer to winter, under 60 degrees. Luckily I brought my winter jacket, didn't feel even a little bit hot after I put it and while painting till 1pm. After the first painting, I noticed that there was a composition problem so I had to paint the second one. I didn't bring extra water, using the dirty water to paint my second wasn't easy in watercolors. I painted directly on the paper with with a brush and the left over dirty water, thought it would help me paint loosely. But it ended up another painting with a compositional issue... Time to go home, I drove the wrong direction in the mountains, but my car GPS and Google map didn't mention to me, only the time and miles showed me the extra minutes and extra miles. Maybe I should start hibernating, lol...