Transparency - in the aquarelle class

The medium-advanced group (they are no longer starters) has been busy researching transparency, with our transparent medium aquarelle - but that doesn't make it any easier...

The challenge was to paint an object of choice, and suggest, through the use of colours, that there is a 'curtain' in front of it.

Excellent work by Roly Bufton!

The trick to that is, to make the colours 'behind the curtain' a couple of shades lighter... or is it? Upon further research it turns out that for a light colour like yellow, it doesn't work like that. The thing to do is to look at the colours and imagine their strength as if you are seeing them in greytones... In that case, yellow is like white - and a (for example) very light blue curtain will make the yellow behind it darker!

 Example of the above. The colours behind the transparent paper are lighter, except for the yellow, which is slightly darker...

There was also a background-foreground-detail exercise to be finished, the last details were added to the background (flowing, light, cool colours)/background (warm colours, inspired by the shapes of the background, more defined and with detail) which led to these different and interesting branches:

 Fabergé egg-like details by Lesley Bufton

Very refined details -and dewdrop!- by Edith Alborni (click to enlarge)

Cathie finished a painting that we all agreed was the perfect design for an Hermès scarf that we all would love to have - even the men - I'll print it next week when I have found out the name of the painting that was the inspiration... But after all that precise work, Cathie needed something else and started experimenting (I can recommend that to all of you!!) with tea, coffee, ink and a bit of watercolour - which led to this not finished but already exciting piece of work!

'Old books' by Cathie van der Stel

Ann Edwards hasn't quite finished her painting - but it's much further than this. Nevertheless I wanted to share this stage with you, because it illustrates so well how strong an 'empty space' can be! Everybody will see a person in the chair - all a different one... Wait until you see the finished watercolour!

Beach chair with ?? by Ann Edwards

Hélène van der Kroft at her best! Small sized quick impressions. Love it! There's a whole story there...

Cubist impression - Drawing with Pim de Jongh

Pim's explanation on the blackboard

As announced in their weekly email, Pim's Monday class had to interpret the still life in a 'cubist' manner...

Before starting some of the participants claimed to hate this asignment... but they must have changed their minds!! Behold the results...

Lucia Gualtieri

 Gwenaelle Chabaud

 Neville Moray

Trish Morris I

Trish Morris II

Café Culture about Jean Tinguely

Wednesday 23 March 'member of the first hour' of the Hangar Jan Terleth gave a great lecture on the Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely.

It was a very interesting talk! Tinguely worked in the Dada tradition and created 'kinetic art', machines from scraps of metal, wood and even bones, that moved and created new art: shadows on the walls, books and paitings - and often destructed themselves. Tingsley was a member of the Parisian avantgarde in the mid-twenties and he was married to Niki de St Phalle.(they very much had their own style though!) 

Apart from a collection of great pictures to illustrate his lecture, Jan showed a video with Tinguely's objects actually moving. It was compelling and sometimes even touching... Funny how iron objects can bring about poetic emotion!

We weren't there in great numbers - many of you couldn't come, but don't worry, Jan has promised to give the lecture once more, probably after the summer holidays!

A big thank you to Jan Terleth, who -as usual - did a great job in helping us understand a contemporary artist with an unusual approach!

Peinture du samédi avec Pim de Jongh

Portrait par Edith Alborni

Deux oeuvres par Florence Pinard

et quelques résultats de Rose Marie:

le dernier tableau de Rose Marie est basé sur une oeuvre originale d'Andé Bricka (1922-1999), peintre alsacien séduit par la Grèce, dont les oeuvres sont exposées Galerie de Cannes, rue d'Antibes.

--by Edith Alborni

Oil painting on Tuesday 22 March 2011 -- Nelly van Hijfte

Nelly's class continues to be productive and this week the impressionists scored very highly...

Valbonne has attracted artists over centuries and we continue the tradition as June Howarths presents a lovely, loose view of people coming through the archway in Valbonne heading for lunch in Eugene Rea's  beautiful, sunny Auberge Provencale restaurant in the square.

Jenny Vonk used a palette knife to create her ethereal figure standing in a grotto, full of colour and texture.

Preferring surrealism this week, Charmian Murley took inspiration from Lewis Carroll - "'The time has come', the Walrus said, 'To talk of many things - of shoes and ships and sealing wax - of cabbages and kings - and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings"'

The last of Nelly's cloud painting class was completed by Dominique Billiard.

--by Charmian Murley

Aquarellista Afternoon (Tuesday 15 March 2011, 2 - 4.30pm)

The Aquarellistas did a lot of great stuff last Tuesday and I brought nice cd's and made delicious tea - but forgot my camera! I took some pictures with my phone, but not enough and the quality is, let's say, not up to its usual standard... Despite that.... have a look at this!!!

Lesley Bufton finished her 'spheres' still life... It is so well done, I can't stop looking at the marbles!

The starters group did their last starter exercise... There are still things to practise, but we have worked through  the theory! The exercise is a small painting of a fantasy-skyline at night, made in four layers. The difficulty is to decide which layer goes first, leave out the white and use enough contrast to make the yellow lights 'shine'. The champion du jour was definitely the following:

By Roly Bufton (even himself agreed that it wasn't bad...) 

Edith Alborn's joined in and created this version

And Lesley Bufton shows how 'building-like' the yellow lights can appear, just by putting them in squares 

Also a big compliment for Ann Edwards, who painted her own excellent version of an existing painting by Paul Millichip titled 'Berber'...

Drawing Franck

Last live model session we had a male model posing for us, and we found it amazing, the difference between, drawing the curves of a female body - and those of a male! We started with a lot of short poses, to get used to his shape...

Virginie Bertoluzzi

and gradually moved on to longer duration

Sandra Seymour-Dale

After the break we all got the hang of it, as you can see. I don't have pictures of all work, but this gives an impression of the overall quality... and coming Monday Franck is back for another good session I'm sure! So watch this space...

 Joop van der Zon

Virginie Bertoluzzi

Marij van Schijndel

Oil painting on Tuesday 8 March 2011 -- Nelly van Hijfte

Sherry Spetz continued working on her cloud background from Nelly's wet-on-wet class to create these fabulous and funny 'Fish on holiday'!

Chris Herlicq finished her lovely golden angel today

Betty Schep her beautiful flowers on a black ground.

Immediately recognisable as a 'Veronique Vandenhoeck', the voiles drifting in this cool interior remind one of warm summers past  - and hopefully to come!

Vanessa Rea rose to the challenge of having to paint with her left hand having broken her right wrist and was very successful in producing these colourful, fluid, landscapes.  Perhaps we should all try loosening up in this way by using the 'wrong' hand and other side of the brain - but hopefully without breaking an arm first.

It will be the asparagus season soon and in advance of that, this bunch, painted by Trish Morris, look good enough to eat.

To round off a beautiful set of paintings from Nelly's class is the glorious Venetian Sunset by Helen Humphrey.

by Charmian Murley

Meet Puska !!

Puska is the artist name of one of our honorary members – Anne Marie Viborel. She moved from Paris to Roquefort Les Pins with her husband at the end of 1999. After setting up her house, she looked around for activities to fill her free time. She heard about Luc Veger, a Dutch artist, who was giving sculpting-lessons in Bar sur Loup and became one of his students. Anne Marie has been a member of Le Hangar since the beginning.

After Luc Veger, passed away, she started painting-lessons with Pim de Jongh. The Wednesday class consisted of only about 8 students. What a difference from today. She also joined the metalworking class and made some interesting sculptures which you can see standing in her garden, and some in the house.

Until recently, Anne-Marie was a member of the board and also a very active member of the “house committee” – always keeping the place nice and clean – and also responsible for the catering on all our social days. She was also one of the organizers of the annual painting trip.

Anne Marie was one of the initial members of the Hangar Abstract Group which paints on Mondays. Like the rest of the group she has tried her hand at varies different styles.

by Celina Schou