Great TEDTalk about beauty

For those of you who enjoyed the lecture(s) of Neville Moray on the mind and how we percieve art, here's a view on the same subject from a different perspective, that of a philosopher. Click the link and enjoy a fifteen minute lecture -with very nice illustrations by animator Andrew Park. (subtitles available in 12 languages)

http://www.ted.com/talks/denis_dutton_a_darwinian_theory_of_beauty.html

Denis Dutton, philosopher of art and the editor of Arts & Letters Daily, has died recently. Celebrate this wonderful mind by watching his TEDTalk on "the evolution of beauty".

His theory: that art, music and other beautiful things, far from being simply "in the eye of the beholder," are a core part of human nature with deep evolutionary origins.

Neville Moray on the cover

Again, we can be very proud of Hangar member Neville Moray! Most of you know him from the excellent lectures he gave on the brain and the perception of beauty and art during two of our Café's Culture...

Neville is now on the cover (!!) of the magazine "San Remo" - and inside, with a bio as well as an interview!

The magazine has just hit the shops, and Neville has promised to leave a copy in the Hanger, but here's the scoop for our blog...

Neville Moray....ou le Pop artPassionné d’art moderne et d’art contemporain tout particulièrement D’Op Art et De Pop Art des années 1960 et 1970, Neville Moray a commencé à peindre assez tard après 40 ans d’une carrière scientifique durant laquelle j’ai enseigné et mené des recherches en psychologie et en ingénierie dans dix universités d’Europe, d’Amérique du Nord et d’Asie. Parmi les premiers maîtres de la peinture moderne, Neville Moray considère Matisse comme le Maître absolu.
Comme beaucoup de « gens du nord » venus vivre dans le sud, Neville Moray été bouleversé par la couleur et la lumière. Ses tableaux, largement influencés par le travail de l’artiste britannique Patrick Caulfield et de l’américain Tom Wesselmann, interprètent l’environnement de la Côte d’Azur dans la tradition du Pop Art.
Caufield exagérant l’utilisation de contours noirs pour représenter des objets dans un grand fond de couleur. Wesselmann coloriste extraordinaire et ses séries «grand nu américain » ont influencé ses représentations de la silhouette humaine.

R S /Neville MORAY quel est votre thème pictural ?

N M / "Mon travail est centré sur la ligne et la couleur. Les tableaux sont des objets en deux dimensions et ne doivent pas être illusion de la réalité. Je peins sur les bords de la toile et laisse les tableaux sans encadrement, ils se suffisent à eux même. Sur la surface de la toile, les lignes et les contours séparent l’espace en zones bien définies. Chaque zone est le vecteur, le réceptacle de la couleur. Les sujets des tableaux sont les couleurs et les lignes et non la représentation d’objets. Je n’essaye pas de donner une ouverture sur une illusion de réalité bien que parfois j’utilise la perspective pour attirer l’observateur vers la couleur. J’essaye de combiner une attitude objective issue de ma formation scientifique avec l’expérience émotionnelle des couleurs du monde méditerranéen dans lequel je vis. A cet égard, je suis les pas de Matisse, le maître de la couleur en essayant de ne pas montrer ce qui est en face de moi mais les émotions véhiculées par la couleur.
En conclusion, pour vivre et peindre sur la Côte d’Azur, on doit adorer la couleur."

More info: http://www.morayart.com/ or email: neville@morayart.com



Merry Christmas to all of you!

*)

THE

AQUARELLISTAS

WISH

YOU

A

VERY

MERRY

CHRISTMAS

!!!!

*) These are the first results of our "Chinese Whispers" project... I'll explain about that in the new year...

Drawing a live model - on Monday 13 December

Model Marie-Jo portrayed by Joop van der Zon

Monday the 13th we got together to practice the sharp eye and hand, making drawings of Marie-Jo, one of our favourite models. And because it was the last time, we celebrated by having Marie-Jo in just one pose. So that we could work a bit longer 'to get it right'! But first as always a warming up, where we draw one- and two-minute poses... If we draw these, there is no time to think! and the ones that come out ok are usually accurate with that spontaneous extra that makes them very interesting!

One-minute poses by Virginie Bertoluzzi

The following pictures show what we saw from the circle we made around Marie-Jo, the lightfall (very sharp, fast moving sunlight that threw confusing shadows on her body) and her pose - very peaceful, but oh so hard for her to maintain...

Marij van Schijndel

Lucia Gualtieri

Sue Ellis

Neville Moray

Sandra Seymour-Dale

Virginie Bertoluzzi

Charmian Murley

That was the drawing group for 2010! We will see each other again on 10 January 2011 - but the blogging won't stop! Keep watching this space!

Xmas lunch in Pim's Wednesday acrylics group

Of course we are all going to the Hangar for the creative and intellectual challenge! Yet from time to time we also participate in other lovely activities over there and one of our favourites (of all groups by the way) is having lunch together. Last Wednesday, the acrylics class of Pim de Jongh had an exceptionally extensive one, to pre-celebrate Christmas - and here are some pictures to show off how much fun it was!

I hope to be able to post more about this class, because apart from the nice lunches they are also doing great work - every Wednesday from (approiximately) 10am to 16pm....

...sure looks like Gonny is reading a naughty Xmas poem to Pim...

...an hour later Pim is still laughing about it...

Thank you Monique Randazzo for the pictures!!

Watercolours on Tuesday afternoon

It is cold in the South of France at the moment, but in the Hangar you hardly notice that... After a nice lunch, we started 2 pm with our "work". Which consisted of several different projects, to begin with, the project "pimp your trainer"... design your personal pattern or other image and paint it on a basketballshoe

Ann Edwards had planned to paint a view with trees - and combined that with the shoe idea 

Edith Alborni created a very convincing converse all star - not finished yet good enough to be posted

They should be taken into production immediately!

Other interesting work! By Marina Teding van Berkhout, who, after a bit of practice, started painting "us" in little sketches

Ann and Bibbi featured in Marina's sketches

Anna Karin proceeded with her painting of the Hangar view! She really caught the misty atmosphere

and last but not least a picture that Bibbi Isaksson started in the Hangar and finished at home just before she went to Sweden... click on the picture to enlarge and fully appreciate the story! It has so much in it...

Tomorrow we'll get together for the last time this year and then we're off for some good partying... Back in 2011!!

A modern approach to a classic still life - 6 December 2010

Last Monday: deep concentration in the drawing group...

Pim had announced "a modern approach to a classic still life - work with heavy lines and overlap the objects, so that diamond shapes will appear, to give your work a strong graphical quality"  It sounded exciting - but I didn't completely get it...

The "classic still life" was beautiful enough...

However, after Pim's explanation on the blackboard it became clear what he meant with the modern graphical approach in heavy lines ! And the results - after 2 hours of hard and concentrated work were truly impressive - look for yourself:

Brigitte Jansen

Betty Schep

Joop van der Zon

Marijke van Schijndel

  Visitor Marloes van Schijndel - o yes, Holland's got talent!!

Neville Moray (not surprisingly) loved the excercise and created two versions

And as always the morning ended with a clear and interesting evaluation of the achievements - by Pim...

In Memoriam Loek Onstein

Many of you may already have heard that our friend and treasured Honorary member Loek Onstein has passed away last Wednesday at the age of 87. As one of the members since the start of the Hangar more than 10 years ago, he was a wonderful person and greatly appreciated by all the members for his friendship and many contributions to the well-being of our Association. He will be dearly missed by all of us!

“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart”

Loek is staying in the Chambre Morteraie of the Centre hospitalier Antibes Juan les Pins (La Fontonne) in Antibes, Route Nationale 7, 06606 Antibes, which can be visited until Monday the 6th of December (included). Opening times: 08:30-12:00 and 13:00-17:30, including the weekend.

If you would like to send flowers, please have them sent to the mortuary on Monday at the latest.
The cremation will take place on Tuesday 7th at 13:00 at the Crematorium de Cannes, Chemin de la Plaine de Laval, 06150 Cannes La Bocca. If planning to attend you are asked to be present at 12:45.

a live model

Wim Teunissen - charcoal and sanguine crayon

Every other Monday morning we get together for a couple of hours to draw a live -nude- model. Last time Marie-Jo sat for us. She is beautiful and great to draw, she understands what we need and what makes a pose interesting. No surprise as she is an artist (sculptor) herself...  Last Monday we started with a warming-up, first 6 poses of ONE minute, then some of 2 minutes, then 5, 10 and the last two of half an hour.  The objective of this class is to practice, sharpen the drawing skills, train the eye - and absolutely NOT to create beautiful results, but - as you can see - that happens anyway!!   Many different styles in this group - but the overall quality is excellent. Here's an impression:

 SL - charcoal. She did this picture in 2 minutes...

Marij van Schijndel "drew the light" with white crayon on black paper

Lucia Gualtieri with pencil.

There was more outstanding work but my pictures (taken with my phone) turned out  awful...

The Watercolour Class - 23 November

Experiments & discoveries

This beautiful and misty image is our actual view from the atelier - painted by Anna-Karin Fast. Even in the coldest period of autumn it is beautiful here as you can see...

(click on a picture to enlarge & enjoy the detail...)

Cathie van der Stel has not used white paint in this painting (not done in aquarelle) - the white you see is the colour of the paper. The colour of the snow: all varieties and shades of blue...

It was very cold last Tuesday (yep, it happens, even on the Côte d'Azur) but we were warm and cozy inside the Hangar - which was so highly appreciated that it led to extra creativity of some of us!

Cathie van der Stel left her usual light, poetic and precise way of working behind and embarked on a project involving sepia ink and watercolours with combined use of pen and brushes. Ink and aquarelle paint flows and bleeds in a similar way, yet ink is much less transparent and more evenly flowing. As you can see in the work in progress below, the background tells its own story. And the contrast between the two materials is very strong... I look forward to the finished picture!

Bibbi Isaksson started a very daring work of art on a beautiful heavy sheet of torchon aquarelle paper. It made me think of the first cave drawings of Lascaux, combined with moving lines of masking fluid  that give the whole a musical appearance. Not yet up for showing, but I'll keep you posted!

While Bibbi waited for her first layer (wash) to dry, she "doodled" a bit with masking fluid, payne's grey and yellow and created (in 3 minutes or so) these Electric Lemons...

Marianne van Wijngaarden has been searching for a certain way of working for some time now. She wants to express herself with a casual way of painting, not too precise, not too detailed, but spontaneous and direct. Wet-in-wet wasn't really the answer, nor was "my" wet-on-dry way of working... She searched for examples and explanations on the internet, used them and already achieved quite some progress, but now she has found a book that has it all - and describes how it is done: 

 "Loosen up your Watercolours" by Judi Whitton

Marianne van Wijngaarden has truly "loosened up" her watercolour style!