Nelly's back!!

We were very pleased to welcome Nelly back to the class following her unfortunate accident which resulted in a broken leg. Her advice was much in demand but a few students needed little help to finish their artworks, such as a this delightful, impressionistic study of two boys by Claudie Deforge:

Chris Herlicq finished one of her large portraits of her family. Her use of colour and ability to show the expression on her son's face is particularly well done. Watch for the rest in this series.

Gina Smit came back after a break with a half-painted canvas and in one morning finished this free-flowing, bright abstract. Using a limited pallette but strong use of tones, this is a great success.

Charmian Murley has been on holiday in Madagascar and is now captivated by lemurs. This one is a Sifaka and is painted on a raw linen ground. There will be more species to come

Also on linen, this is Pesaka Boy, owned by a friend in the U.K. Look out for him racing in the future.

The Café Culture Cinéma of 21 March 2012

This is what you MISSED...

A very very good documentary movie about Annie Leibovitz, the great photographer who worked for the magazine 'Rolling Stone' and photographed John Lennon 5 hours before he was shot, the Stones, Leonardo di Caprio, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Demi Moore and did mega creative photoshoots for Vanity Fair and Vogue, well - you name it. And a lovely person, a true artist...

And then of course around all that the interesting and highly appreciated exhibition of the Aquarellistas work on the 'Carnival de Venice'... We showed that the Hangar can be changed in a very attractive gallery! And we showed that the quality of our work is high. Such a shame that there were only 20 visitors!! So - for all of you who couldn't make it, here are a couple of pictures of the 'exposette'... (click to enlarge)

The Carnival paintings

The 'Stripey Nudes'

Other Aquarelles

 Before the movie...

Drinkees after the movie

Aquarellistast Edith Alborni, Monique Randazzo and last -but certainly not least- Agnès McLaughlin, thank you so very much for your support, clever ideas and help with the hanging and the taking down of all the paintings!!

The chicken and rooster project

Pim de Jongh, who supervises the Wednesday classes, regularly comes up with some interesting themes that inspire his pupils. The most recent theme was chickens and rooster. Below you see some of the results.

Thanks to Irene Olkkonen for the photos.

Small abstracts in a series

The latest abstract project is to make a series of 4 or more small abstracts. All the paintings need to fit together as if they are in a family (something similar - but not the same). Everyone has approached this in a different way. Below are some of the results so far

Pim giving a critique on Imme's work

Karin's work so far

Celina's work so far

Next week we will hopefully come back with works of more artists.

Preparation for Aquarellista Exposette

Edith Alborni, Liz Douglas, Agnès McLaughlin and Georgina Hole

During the Café Culture Cinéma of coming Wednesday, the aquerellistas will show their work on 'Carnival of Venice'. Plus a couple of other good ones, like the stripey nudes...and a photo presentation of how we work...

Brigitte Jansen

An excellent reason (next to a very interesting documentary about photographer Annie Leibovitz) to come to the Hangar on Wednesday night... Here's a preview of some of the paintings you can see 'live' on Wednesday - we hope to finish everything tomorrow!!

Sandra Seymour-Dale, Anna-Karin Fast, Cathie van der Stel, Marina Kulik

Helene van der Kroft

Sandra Seymour-Dale

Monique Randazzo

Liz Douglas is painting another one... will she finish it in time?

NB: the Café Culture Cinéma will take place on Wednesday 21 March in the Hangar, with a documentary about photographer Annie Leibovitz. And an exhibition of Aquarelles.

Opens 7.30pm - Movie starts 8pm

Carnaval de Venise - a project in aquarelle

Lots of great work again last Tuesday...! We have started a project inspired on Lesley Bufton's visit to Venice - where the carnival happened to be in full swing!! She had exciting pictures - that unfortunately were a bit too small yet gave us plenty of ideas and we found what we were looking for on the internet. Some of us worked on their own pictures:

Brigitte Jansen on her way to finish another very interesting and deep aquarelle!

Most striking is the mask but also interesting that she has used lots of salt on the hat, with a refined effect (much salt gives little dots, a few grains give big shapes)

Lesley Bufton started on an ambitious - and very cool - picture of an 'Arlequino'...

Helene van der Kroft created on a composition of two masks...

And then there was teamwork! We are making two really big paintings - with 4 artists. This means constant communication, on sizes, measurements and colours, quite a challenge!

Liz Douglas and Edith Alborni started a wonderful picture in flaming colours... They hope to be joined by two more painters coming Tuesday...

 And the second team painting by Sandra Seymour-Dale, Anna-Karin Fast, Cathie van der Stel and Marina Kulik

It already looks super if you ask me - coming Tuesday we'll try to finish most of the work and you can actually check all this out on the next Café Culture (Wednesday 21 March), when we'll exhibit them - and more aquarelles - in the Hangar!!

Smart use of cling film

Sometimes it is such fun to use other materials in your aquarelle! For instance: cling film. It gives an effect that would be hard to create with a brush, it is lively, spontaneous and you can never be completely sure what it ends up like... Mmm sounds like aquarelle watercolours! It is a great way to fill up a background if you want it to be interesting but not too dominant. Many have experimented with it and last week Agnès tried it for her 'collage girl'

Make a wet -in-wet background, with lots of pigment(s) and put wrinkly cling film on it.
Let dry (in the air, don't use a hairdryer) carefully take the film off and behold the result:

Collage Girl by Agnès McLaughlin

At the same time Roly worked hard and steady on his own -perfectly drawn!- boat:

Roly Bufton's yacht

He is visiting her this week so high expectations for an all-inspired finishing of this project...

Brigitte finished her original scarf - she has now achieved mastery in folds and stripes!

 Brigitte Jansen's bedouine-like image of a scarf



There is also a lot of good work in progress - Cathie van der Stel started the last part of her series of sea beasts - a lobster (they really come in spectacular colours but this one is coloured according to Cathie's imagination...), Mieke van Papen began with an abstract looking jellyfish, Edith Alborni worked on a picture of a running leopard, Lesley Bufton almost finished a very happy painting of a couple of  ducks (or geese?) and Lies Timmermans started a promising graphical nude... I hope to show you all that next week!

We finish with Edith Alborni's creative take on last week's subject:

Edith Alborni