Painting contest

Anna-Karin Fast's poetic tomatoes 

There are many painting contests going on at the moment, some of us aquarellistas are participating in the Grand Prix d'aquarelle and I just posted about another watercolour competition on the aquarellista blog - organized by the Sunday Telegraph. Cathie actually read the whole article and found out that that one is only admitting residents of the UK. Still very interesting but not for most of us here in France!

Bibbi Isaksson's kids on ice - a fairytale in the making

Cathie found us an alternative: The Artist's Magazine's 28th Annual Art Competition. This competiton may be interesting for all Hangar members who paint: it is international and all techniques are admissible... and apart from the eternal glory, the prize money is interesting too!  $25,000 in Cash Prizes...

Cathie van der Stel's peonies - a work in progress

Bright red tomatoes by Edith Alborni

 Sandra Seymour-Dale's botox girl

Read more about the painting contest by following this link. The deadline is April 15th

Saturday Class for French Speakers

The Saturday Acrylics class is mainly for French speaking artists – although some others occasionally sneak in. It is a harmonious and productive full day class – with a short break for lunch. Today there were about 10 participants. Here you see some of them.

Rose-Marie (Duclos) is a new member and here she is finishing off her colourful landscape.

Edith has been working hard on her portrait – but it’s not quite finished yet.

Edith is also working on a surrealistic landscape

Lisa (Loheac) works on several abstracts at a time – here you see her putting the finishing touches on one of them.

Pim is always saying “leave it – leave it”, but not everyone listens. It is so tempting to add a little more – and then you overdo it.

Julia is proudly showing the picture she has been working on for several lessons.

Gabrielle (Berendsen) is working on her Toscana Landscape.

Anne (Lempereur) has just started out working on a new abstract

and here's a portrait by Corine

By Edith Albone and Celina Schou

Live Model drawing - Theory

Last Thursday afternoon the Model Theory course started, four times 2 hours of intensive drawing and listening.

Maurice Elstub and Gwenaelle Chabaud in deep concentration

It is semi-private tutoring, with a maximum of 4 participants and the objective is to learn 'how-to-do-it', as well as the theoretical basics on proportions, perspective, light, dark and shadow and anatomy.

Camilla Fitzgerald and Trish Morris working hard on their 10-minute pose

Marina in a 10-minute pose

The first 3 afternoons we work with photo’s and teacher Marina as our model (dressed) and there is plenty of time for LOTS of comments and advice (or 'nagging' as we call it) and discussion and evaluation of the work! The 4th session we'll have a real live, nude model...

Of course we've only had the first session, but that was great fun and impressive improvements were made and everybody was dead tired after 2 hours (which is a good sign!)

Tomatoes in aquarelle

Tomatoes in the bowl of Anna-Karin Fast. Not yet finished but already interesting!

Last week the aquarellistas took a break from the roses without thorns... The  occasion was the exercise for the starters, who were going to paint a still life with rounded shapes to consolidate what they learned in the spheres-exercise.  I brought a couple of round (and not so round) objects, a red pepper, 3 sherry tomatoes, an orange, a round bottle with nailpolish and two marbles to practice on... Anna-Karin had a wonderful string of big, juicy, red tomatoes with her - and we ended up painting tomatoes, each of us in their own style! The tube with "Winsor red" is almost finished...

 Lesley Bufton's still life with nailpolish and marbles: to be continued...

 

Edith Alborni's tomatoes in glass bowl

Tomato still life in interesting colours by Bibbi Isaksson

And last but definitely not least, no tomato but a gorgeous rose by Ann Edwards -

as you can see she did a stunning colour&contrast job again!

Oil painting on Tuesday morning

a large abstract in Veronique Vandenhoek's trademark neutrals

a bright view of houses by the sea by Jacqueline Degeorges

Namibian lady by Charmian Murley

Nelly's class is an atelier libre and as the pictures show, it is very exciting to see the range of ideas that people have and the different techniques they use to express themselves.  We see how the other students work so we learn from them too.

by Charmian Murley

Pim’s Acrylics class - a special project

Once a month Pim has a special project for his Acrylics classes. Last month the project was “Summer: Hot & Dry”. The February project was “Spring: New life & rebirth”.  Members can either come with their own photos or images that they want to paint, they can paint from memory or use one of the many suggestions Pim has prepared for the class. Below you see 3 of the artists with their work.

Anne Marie Viborel and her interpretation of spring

Gonnie Rikken and her interpretation of spring

Irene Olkkonen an her interpretation of spring

by Irene Olkkonen

Watercolour starters - progress!

Tuesday afternoon is aquarellista (or 'zen') afternoon, and apart from our regular, advanced artists, there is also a starter group. In five or six afternoons they learn the groundrules of the technique. This post is meant to make them a big fat compliment on their progress - with the results of the 'suggest volume' exercise...

 Lesley Bufton's finished exercise - it is fabulous! Note in the first place that it has volume, then the bird with its wonderful feathers, the orange ball down left, the fried egg in the middle and all these other animals with their intricate details!!!

Roly Bufton likes the big picture and the bright colours - and his painting shows it! Below the striped red-pink cylindre demonstrates that the suggestion of volume is better when you follow the shape with your pattern

Roly's excellent spheres! They seem to roll from the paper!

And the same for Lesley's marbles... fabulous...

The 'advanced' group in the meantime is working on their top secret entries for the Grand Prix d'aquarelle... Next week more about that!