Original Art Stories - Xueling Zou

Middle of March, 2012 I am not sure if I believe in a sixth sense or not. At the beginning of this year, I changed a couple of decorations into bird designs, like large candle holder, our table cloth, dish matte, containers, etc. I hadn't borrowed DVDs from our local library for a quite long time. But one day, I grabbed a DVD without reading the details, it was Don Carroll and Noriko Carroll's movie "First Flight: A Mother Hummingbird's Story".  I watched the whole story at home, and gained some basic knowledge about the bird. There are two plum trees in between our house and our neighbor's. They bloom with gorgeous pink flowers every February, then new leaves cover the entire trees quickly. During the middle of March, after these two trees were full of leaves, I saw a humming bird hanging around the right side tree from one of our windows, and I was surprised to realize that she was building a nest . She flew in and out countless times during the day

This was the boy I captured and planned to paint in 2009 during my first visit to Argentina without speaking a single Spanish word. After landing in the beautiful old colonial architecture city, which has a natural scenery of the valleys westward - Salta located in northwestern Argentina, we were exhausted and starving, could not wait for most of the restaurants opened at 7PM. When travelling, we love to follow local people to try their really traditional food. Walking around the city, we found this small Empanadas Restaurant was full of local people in the very center of the downtown. Quickly we decided to give a try. We just learned how to order water, hadn't had learnt to count in Spanish yet. Most of families were sitting together eating there on this late of a Saturday afternoon. A young boy - about eight or nine years old immediately ran in front of us to take our order after we just sat down. I pointed at the other table's food, and showed my fingers one by one. We

Being an artist, I can visually create an image in my minds eye. Here is the example of a small painting project.  I did 2 paintings, one is the hallway before, and another one is the hallway after an imaginary makeover. An inherited house from grandpa, a couple didn't want to give up anything from the past with those beautiful memories of their grandpa. But they felt depressed living in the house. The 2nd painting was a suggestion to relocated some of the old furniture and repaint the interior. They took my advice and did a minimal renovation for their hallway as the first step. And now, they are happily living there with their beloved dog, the Hallway Before is handing in their hallway now:-)! Please click the 1st image for viewing other artists' comments under the painting, or view more paintings at: https://xueling-zou.pixels.com/featured/grandpas-hallway-after-xueling-zou.html ​Or join me at: FaceBook , Instagram , Twitter , Pinterest