Still Life Drawing

On Monday, Pim put together another of his beautiful compositions.

And take a look at some of the results:

Still Life 10 - by Brigitte

Still Life 10 - by Lucia

Still Life 10 - by Marijke

Still Life 10 - by Neville

Graphical Nudes in Aquarelle

Cathie van der Stel

The aquarellistas embarked on a challenge last week that is now halfway and looks interesting as well as totally beautiful! We worked from sixties pictures of women with light and shadow projected on their naked bodies... Here are the first results... amazing don't you think!

Agnes McLaughlin

Anna-Karin Fast

Edith Alborni

Liz Douglas

Mieke van Papen

Brigitte Jansen

Georgina Hole worked on one too but didn't get so far because she also finished her Parrots:

 Lies Timmermans returned from Switzerland (with the sun) and started with these lovebirds to get back into the groove! She'll join in on the graphic project tomorrow...

And last but not least Liz Douglas finished her view on Plascassier

PLAYING WITH COLOUR

Last Monday the abstract group had a session where everyone played with colour. The idea was to put a LOT of paint on the canvas, two - three - four- colours and then move it around with a palette knife. Sounds easy - but It's not. You don't have much time to think about composition and if you mix your colours too much they become grey or a murky brown.

Below you can see some of the artists at work.

Anne-Marie, Carina and Marie Helen at work

Karin at work

And below are some of the results from the Monday session. The work continues this coming Monday.

Sue with her creation

Marie Helen's work

Carina's work

Barbara's first work

Anne's work

Merete's work

Barbara's second piece

Tatiana's work

The work continues this coming Monday !

Moving Models

Live drawing on Monday 20 February

Last Model drawing session we started with a new kind of 'warming up'. We usually start with a couple of very quick poses, where our model stands still for a minute and then assumes another pose.

This time we kept the minute, but our model Melissandre turned a little bit after each minute, where the idea was to superimpose the drawings. There are various versions as result, but everyone participated and felt it was a good exercise! We will definitely repeat it next time - and then our model will not turn but move slightly. Imagine the difficulty for your brain: 'catch the pose' in a minute and keep track of the movement...

Below some of the drawings - they are not made with the intention to create beautiful pictures - but for study purposes! And they still 'move' don't you think?!

Neville Moray

Marijke van Schijndel

Wim Teunissen

Lucia Gualtirie

Sandra Seymour-Dale

Claudie X

Georgie Hole

FYI: the idea for the superimposing comes from an excellent book, recommended to me by Neville. It contains 20-something very interesting drawing exercises. I have ordered it and will from time to time 'steal' some of the ideas - of course not without mentioning the source:

"Drawing Projects: An Exploration of the Language of Drawing"
by Mick Maslen. The paperback version costs £14.74

OK - and then of course we also drew longer poses, below two that I happened to take a picture of:

Betty Schep

Marij van Schijndel

Aquarelle - Tuesdays - 2 - 4.30pm - Marina Kulik

Tuesday 14 February

Last week we got together in the Hangar to have a break from Valentines day, work on a variety of paintings, discuss our work and ideas, drink verveine-menthe-orange tea and listen to music. As you can imagine we had a good time - and what came out of it was better than good!

First of all - the last work on the miniature/enlargement project was finished:

Brigitte Jansen created this composition with ivy leaves. She kept wanting to push the 'photo' away - that's how realistic the miniature is...

Georgina Hole finished her enlargement of the colourful parrot, looking sideways at his own miniature

We had a visitor, Claudie Godart. She is an artist working with other materials right now and because she works on boats in the season, she'd like to learn aquarelle because it enables her to (easier) create her 'carnets de voyage'. Claudie will come back in October when the sailing season is over for them...

The logic choice of boatie Claudie Godart -  after a picture in the light and shadow book. So well done for a first try!

Two group members couldn't help themselves being inspired by the Valentine mood:

 Agnès McLaughlin painted this extremely lovely and romantic bunch of roses and lilies

 Cathie van der Stel painted this beautiful colourful magnification of a tiny frog - that of course will change into a prince as soon as you kiss him!

Liz Douglas proceeded with her impression of Plascassier. She started with the foreground and sky - or better put, an abstraction of that. It worked, it works very well! Coming Tuesday it will probably be finished - and shown in this blog, so watch this space!

Sandra Seymour-Dale is working on another magically interesting picture - this is what it looks like halfway.  the painting will now be stored for a couple of weeks so her view on it becomes fresh again before she finishes it...

Edith Alborni created one of the best versions I have seen of 'the girl'. More about that in a later post...

Monday Morning Drawing Class - with Pim de Jongh

Every Monday morning there is a drawing class - the classes alternate between model drawing with Marina Kulik and "technical" drawing with Pim de Jongh. SO what is actually technical drawing ? In short it is everything that is not model / portrait drawing. Some Mondays are spent working on perspective, some on light and shadows, and there are a whole lot of other useful subjects that are covered. Useful ? - yes definitely because it is theory that can be put to good use when painting.

Monday 13/2 the project was to draw a still life. Pim set up a beautiful composition and his students had to make their drawing using lines and not be shading.

Pim's Still Life

His students worked hard and were enthusiastic - just look how hard Georgina is concentrating !

Student diligently at work

And below you can see some of the results.

Aquarelle Tuesdays 2 - 4.30pm - Marina Kulik

Miniatures and Magnifications

50x70 cm Seahorse by Cathie van de Stel - Mindblowing!!

Cathie actually received applause when she showed this during the evaluation last Tuesday. Believe me, the photo doesn't do it justice, this aquarelle has a perfect balance between colour, experiment, light, dark, fun, depth and mystery. And as you can guess, it is an enlargement of the real thing - the size of a seahorse or hippocampus varies between 1 and 20 centimeters...

Our challenge du jour (and for the coming weeks) was to take a colourful picture or still life, and create a composition with a miniature of the whole thing and then a magnification as the background. Most of us have started and not yet finished - and it already looks spectacular so I'd like to share two morre with you:

Mini and Maxi parrot - beautiful work in progress by Georgina Hole 

Miniature of ivy with berries - painted from a still life and  to be continued tomorrow by Brigitte Jansen

And there was other pretty impressive and interesting painting going on...

'Portrait of a woman'  by Sandra Seymour Dale

A very characterful portrait with an interesting symbolism. Note how the chicken wire (imprisonment) changes into flying birds (freedom) and the vague silhouette of a man, partly in front of the woman (taking her light) -  Have a long look at it and give it your own interpretation... super interesting!

Agnes McLaughlins' colourful chickens (their names: Oh, La and La) 

A super happy & funny picture with a whole different use of chicken wire (in white crayon) and I particularly like how the eyes are done... Click on the picture to enlarge

Lesley Bufton's Tropical house with Palm Tree

Lesley had a good old struggle to get the background in the colour she wanted, and after a first wash of ochre did a second of ultramarine with a little bit of carmine - and then another one, which did the trick! It's not finished but you can already see the tropical atmosphere (with a rainstorm coming?) and the light and dark is remarkable...

'Tunnel' by Anna-Karin Fast

Anna-Karin finished the 'tunnel' image - which worked out very well! Then started with a big cat. She used masking fluid for the whiskers. This will make them stand out in a spontaneous background... As usual Anna-Karin painted this picture in just a few brush strokes. Here's a preview:

Roly Bufton finished his picture with little fishing boats in it - and will soon embark on a painting project that has to do with a big boat (his own). But for the time being he painted a dune, in 15 minutes and it actually looks great!

Edith Alborni finished her 'Collage' in sepia

and then moved on to 'Woman with a colourful shawl' whom I will dedicate a blogpost to after she finishes. We have enough versions now, all based on the same picture and very very different!

And the last two contributions are from Liz Douglas (who is actually working on a very interesting painting of the village Plascassier) and Judith Kuiper. They both washed aquarelle paint off their painting, Judith to make it lighter and work further on it and Liz because she was unhappy with the left part of her otherwise wonderful still life:

Phase 1 and 2 of Liz Douglas's metallic still life. Part washed out and then 'repaired'. Spot the differences! (click to enlarge)

Judith Kuipers'  Abstract Bird - all washed out and ready for the next layer...