Ziling Zhou Finds Time for Painting

Highland Park High School teenager’s art gets shown and sold

Many now-famous artists never sold a painting in their lifetimes, but 15-year-old Highland Park High School student Ziling Zhou has already exhibited and even sold a few pieces. 

She started drawing at 4 years old but increased her dedication while at Highland Park Middle School.

“I got more serious about it last year in eighth grade, sketching and painting with Miss Butler,” Ziling said.

She’s now exploring other mediums, including oil pastel, weaving, and oil paint, with encouragement from her high school art teacher, Jenai Talkington. 

Talkington guided Ziling to complete a series of three pieces on the same subject using different approaches — a set was submitted, accepted, and exhibited in January at Blue Print Gallery’s Young Artist Exhibition. Even better, it quickly sold.

“Needless to say, her artistic practice has already superseded high school,” Talkington said. “It has been a pleasure to be a part of her creative development.” 

Ziling described her gravitation toward representational art and more recent attempts at portraiture.

“At first, I was mainly doing calm, majestic landscapes,” she said. “It’s hard to get the colors of the skin right. I’ve been trying to sketch people doing different expressions, so I can practice that and paint them better. Sometimes when I have art block, I get out a piece of paper and just draw what comes to mind.”

Lately, she’s been working on paintings of her dad and one of her friends.

“I took a picture of my friend and altered the colors to get a more nostalgic vibe, which I like. It was her first homecoming, so it’s like a glimpse of the past. I have an art class every day, then I take an art class outside of school once a week for two hours,” she said, speaking of private art teacher Steve Ko. “I can see I’ve improved with figure drawing a lot.”

Ziling’s mother, Nancy, is proud of her daughter’s art but not pushing it.

“Over time, her work has been going through the school system, being selected for exhibition,” Nancy said. “This time, the teacher was excited that her work was selected for the gallery exhibition and sold. Even with these exhibitions, I leave her to manage it. She’s been driving it all.”

In addition to art, Ziling is interested in biology.

“High school isn’t as different as I was expecting,” she said. “People are definitely more worried about their grades, though. I started doing some digital art, but it was hard to get the hang of it at first. It’s incredibly convenient with copy-and-pasting and color-dropping. I do it sometimes, but not as much as the other.”

“I’m putting together a list of art competitions I want to apply to,” Ziling added. “I need to get my study schedule together to make sure I have the time for painting.”