Kelly Zou

Intuitive Painting: Creating a Path

Illustration - MA

School of Design

kellyzxj6@gmail.com

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Bio

Kelly Zou is a storyteller, illustrator, and ex-programmer. She is based in UK and studying MA in Illustration in Edinburgh College of Art. She has been the recipient of Honorable Mention in the 2019 3×3 Illustration Awards, her works were chosen for 2019 and 2020 Asia Illustrations Collections, and she is also the illustrator of the book “The Lost Flower Children” by Janet Taylor Lisle published in China. She loves telling stories.

Kelly’s work is mostly informed by her experience and thoughts. She loves reading books and regenerating ideas from them. She often goes outside with her sketchbook to gather visual materials and explore the beauty of nature. Some meanings and philosophy behind her works are also based on her own understandings about life. Kelly uses both traditional materials and digital tools, sometimes she combines both to get special features.

Picture Book: The Red Triangle

There is a red triangle, it lives alone, it likes going outside for a run, to enjoy fresh air surrounded by nature. One day, it met a blue triangle, out of curiosity, they moved closer and closer, until they became a square! They were so happy together, they swam in the river, they skied on the mountain, they went for a run, and stayed together after the sunset, they felt so inseparable.

Another day, there came another triangle. Before the red triangle realized what had happened, the blue triangle had left.

It was alone again, it tried to come out, to the same river, same mountain, same hills, without the blue triangle anymore. It started to break, it broke into pieces.

But slowly, the pieces were changing, and when they recombined, it became a circle.

It started running again, surprisingly, it found itself running faster and faster, to places it would never been able to get to before, and also met something new.

Picture Book: The Yellow Hat

Little Yellow found a yellow hat on the beach. It fit it pretty well.

Little Yellow went to the first place, it was told by others, that the hat shouldn't be yellow, it should be orange, so Little Yellow added some red to the hat, made it orange.

Little Yellow went to the second place, others told it that the hat shouldn't be orange, it should be green, so Little Yellow added some blue to make it green.

Little Yellow went to the third place, but was told that the hat should not be green, it should be purple, so Little Yellow added some pink to the hat, to turn it into dark purple.

Then it went to several places, added more colours to change the colour from its hat from time to time, until it was black...