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!

Variations on a theme

Rose by Ann Edwards - she will add a strong shadow in the next stage

Ann, Cathie, Edith and me got together on Aquarellista Tuesday, everyone else was either traveling, having extensive lunch with husband or ill... The four of us had a great time, we drank tea from XLmugs, discussed our work in detail and have something to show for, all with 'Roses Without Thorns' in the backs of our heads... 

Cathie van der Stel's angel - even more beautiful now that it is finished

 Cathie also started another version of the  thornless rose... Not finished but already stunning!!

Would this be the one for the contest? Or still a study... 

Edith Alborni's rose without thorns - she worked wet-in-wet combined with a little bit of masking fluid

And in the same line of thought, maybe slightly less serious, I started painting a very corny single-cover, of a sixties single by 'Gert & Hermien' with the title "No roses without thorns"

Live model drawing - Monday 9.30 - 12 - Marina Kulik

Sunniva Langmoen, Neville Moray, Lucia Gualtieri and Sandra Seymour-Dale hard at work...

Every other Monday there is a live model class, for the artists who are seriously studying the human shape and want to train their hand-eye coordination. I don't think there is something more difficult than drawing the human body, in proportion, and with a likeness! Yet the Monday morning group does a great job...

Mélisandre by Charmian Murley

I have noticed that the people who participate in the live class are not afraid to take on whatever subject with their pencils...

Sue Ellis

Our "model du jour" was new to us, Mélisandre, a professional model from Paris - and it was a fantastic experience to work with her!

Virginie Bertoluzzi

She sits incredibly still, I don't have to tell her anything about positions, she knows what will be interesting to draw - and from all angles.

Gwenaelle Chabaud

Apart from that she has a beautiful body... No wonder she is fully booked all the time, but I'll try to get her as often as possible, and we may spend the full Monday with her and use paint...

Trish Morris

I took pictures with my phone, they came out really bad, so I'm afraid I won't be able show you Sunniva's, Neville's, Sandra's and Lucia's work this time...

Marijke van Schijndel's quick sketches

Skyscapes in oil - Nelly van Hijfte, Tuesday mornings



In Nellie’s class, a week ago, students were given a photocopy of a cloudy sky and a large sheet of canvas.  Using wet on wet techniques they made their own cloudy skies and allowed them to dry.   This week they were invited to ‘decorate’ the skies by painting on top of the dry skyscapes, giving fun and very different results.  Some examples of both before and after are shown here in the blog.

Jenny

Jacqueline

Claudine

Nan

 Eugène



Vanessa

Françoise

by Charmian Murley

Valentine variety in aquarelle

We took a break from the "Roses without Thorns", and dedicated last week's aquarelle session to valentine's day - as our theme du jour. And lots of interesting work came out of that, as different personalities think different thoughts with a theme like this! Angels, cupids, hearts - and yes, roses...

 Angel by Cathie van der Stel - note the peaceful wise expression

 Cupid by Bibbi Isaksson. This is just a try out, he doesn't even have his wings - but look at the light, his expression and the softness of his skin...

 Cupid, hearts and roses by Edith Alborni - done with humor as a kind of cartoon and that worked out well!!

 We had Rhoda Seymour-Dale visiting who hadn't been drawing or painting for a long time. She started out carefully with a still life and then couldn't stop! I think she's ready for a bit of paint now...we look forward to seeing her approach to watercolours...

Bibbi's little girl with ancient eyes (and roses)

Not finished but developing into a gorgeous painting, these roses by Sandra Seymour-Dale

And the next version of Anna-Karin Fast's Roses without thorns, the christmas roses... she's not quite happy with them but I think they are wonderful. Anna-Karin has a certain, recognizeable spontaneous style... More about that in coming posts...

There was much more work done, projects like the white still life and the trainer were finished...

The white still life, finished and stronger than ever - by Ann Edwards

The white still life by Edith Alborni - completed!

 The trainer by Edith Alborni - Completed!

...and other projects are still ongoing:

Marina Teding van Berhout's hands - still going on...

Saturday painting group with Pim de Jong

For those who cannot easily join the Hangar groups during work days, Pim de Jongh has a painting class on Saturday. Starting around 9.30 and finishes in the afternoon. It is an atelier libre, everybody brings their own subject and inspiration and Pim helps out and gives tailored advice. The attendees usually work with acrylic paint, the atmosphere is wonderful and the work very interesting!!

Here are some examples

Rose-Marie's mysterious still life

Edith's wonderful sunny houses

Flo with a composition of poetic flowers and threatening thorns

The painting of the first picture in theis post, now finished - by Julia

and another artwork by Julia

Pim is on his way to the coffeemachine I bet

by Edith Alborni

A dozen aquarellista's on a Tuesday afternoon

big fun at the 'outcast' table

Twelve aquarellistas, three levels, two subjects and one (slightly) chaotic afternoon last Tuesday. Yet the company (combined with Marina's famous tea) made everybody feel comfortable - and some great work was achieved! The starters and Edith did a "washing" exercise which will in the coming weeks be finished, with the suggestion of volume...

4 exercises, washed and already beginning to look voluminous

The other part of the group was working on the Grand Prix, in other words, thinking, experimenting, researching and creating around the theme "Roses without thorns"... Shall we take it literally, have peonies or Christmas roses as subjects? Or use the symbolic value and express total innocence? Or paint regular roses with a twist... or something else... It is an inspiring subject, so much is clear - and it will give us many weeks of fun... Here's an overview...

Edith Alborni covered her two roses with masking fluid, added a dark background and behold the stunning result!

Anna-Karin Fast worked on Christmas roses - with her broken brush, now repaired!!

Cathie was doodling a bit and ended up with these wonderfully fragile -eh- little flowers... you can almost smell them...

Marina Teding van Berkhout is purely researching for a perfect, wet-in-wet 'handwriting' and she's getting there

Sandra Seymour-Dale's half-finished delicate rose (no thorns)

Lies Timmermans, just visiting for 1 week from Switzerland (luckily returning within 2 months) started a brilliant rose - that she is going to finish at home

Bibbi Isaksson just returned from Sweden - she was thinking in the direction of innocence last week... but with her creative mind that may change! More than once even...

And I painted a rose as a tribute to the boy David, son of a friend, who went missing and after 3 weeks of frantic searching by his family and friends was found dead. We'll dearly miss him.