About Ina Xi
Ina "Zhengxin" Xi is a plein air watercolorist and art educator based in Port Orchard, Washington, whose work explores themes of nostalgia, travel, and shared human experiences.
With a background in business consulting and user experience design, Ina brings design thinking into her fine art practice—developing student-centered, highly accessible watercolor courses and creating artworks that resonate deeply with her audience while offering a fresh perspective.
Since stepping onto the art scene in 2024, Ina has quickly gained both regional and international recognition and cultivated a loyal online community through her YouTube channel.
When she is not creating or teaching art, Ina can be found tending to her cut flower garden, travelling, or learning a new craft.
Creative process
Although most of my exhibition pieces are produced in the studio, the inspiration gathering often happens on-site, through an iterative process.In order to preserve the fresh feelings of the subject, and to find an interesting composition, I do live sketching or small paintings on location and then develop them further in the studio.Although it doesn’t take more than 3 hours to paint each piece, due to the unpredictable nature of the watercolor medium, multiple paintings are created before the desired result is achieved – a painting with a highly distilled subject, sophisticated color palette and seemingly careless brush marks.
Painting "en plein aire"
Outside of the studio setting, I also enjoy painting on-site and some of my best work are done ‘en plein air’. There is nothing like being there in person that enables the artist to convey the exact mood and the essence of their subject. I paint to observe our humble existence in nature and in history. My work is simply a medium for that observation.
Imaginary scenes
Sometimes I paint imaginary scenes when I’m feeling nostalgia about a place. My process involves looking through old photos from that place and ‘mashing them up’ to create the composition. I then draw from years of experience painting all types of weather, seasons and atmosphere, to build the right mood for the scene.
The painting "Getting street food", for example, is an imaginary scene based on my memory of a familiar street corner from my childhood. The mood was captured after trying out different color pallete through study pieces, with the forms and figures based on various reference photos and some from imagination as well.
