Painting for (the) cover!

Last Monday the model-drawing group had a special project!

Rock and Roll producer-now-author Chris France, who has published an interesting and funny book on 'the daily lives of the idle rich in the Côte d'Azur' is working on the sequel.

The cover of the first book is a nice yet very simple picture....

Because Chris has been joking around in his daily blog about being a model, I offered to provide the cover for the second book, by way of a design contest: we would get to know Chris by drawing him during our regular Monday morning, where he would sit for us. We would then take all kinds of pictures, and everyone would create a painting with these. When that's done, end of May, I will send him the pictures and Chris will choose the one he thinks is most suitable... Eternal glory for the chosen one, nice publicity for the Hangar too, a fun project for all - and Chris has had his first 'try out' modeling session...

The first part of the contest took place last Monday!

Chris arrived in his lovely 'camper' Bluebell, bringing all kinds of attributes that might inspire and help... a tennis racket, a golden record, wine, cigars...

We had a group of 14 interested participants, who all agreed that Chris was a good model, albeit with his clothes on, but at least he sat very still and he has interesting features like a moustache and a goatee...

After 3 half hours of intense drawing, everyones impressions of Chris had improved significantly! I am happy to see that 'getting to know someone'  by drawing them actually works...

And then we started the photo session...

All participants are now working out their drawings and paintings into their design for a cover. End of May we'll get together again, to take the pictures and then send them to Chris who will make his choice! We'll keep you posted...

Portraits on Saturday 1

Last Saturday, Pim's painting group worked on portraits, and as promised, here is the 'theory bit', things to remember if you draw or paint a portrait!

I will post it in three parts because otherwise it is going to be so much text!

First of all, before you get started, stand still and think of a couple of things:

What is the objective of this portrait ?
Do you want to express feelings and emotions for your model or do you go for the likeness

In the first case the technical side is less important, but if you aim for likeness, you need proportions.

Determine your composition. Simple things, like your position relative to the model: do you look up to your model, or look down on him or her? Is he or she larger than life or smaller. Do you paint the head only or the whole body, sitting or standing posistion...

Where does the light come from

and how do you see the face: frontal, 3/4 view or en profil?

It is always good to know the rules of thumb of the proportions of a face! Try to remember the following: When you look at your model with your eyes on the same height as theirs...

The basic shape of the face is an egg shape

The eyes (pupils) are in the middle of the head

The distance between eyes is one eyeball

The bottom of the nose is the middle of the face

The width of the nostrils corresponds with the insides of the eyes

The width of the mouth corresponds with the middle of the eyelids

The ears (bigger than you think) start on the level of the eyes and end at the corner of the mouth

Portraits le Samedi I

 

Samedi dernier, le groupe peinture Pim a travaillé sur des portraits, et comme promis, voici le 'théorie', les choses à retenir si vous voulez dessiner ou peindre un portrait!

Je vais le poster en trois parties et deux langues...

Tout d'abord, avant de commencer, pensez à ces choses:

Quel est le but de ce portrait? Voulez-vous exprimer vos sentiments et les émotions de votre modèle ou est le but la ressemblance (Dans le premier cas, le côté technique est moins important, mais si vous visez la ressemblance, les proportions sont bien importantes !)

Déterminez votre composition.

Des choses simples, comme votre position par rapport au modèle: êtes-vous sur une position inférieure à celle du modèle, ou regardez vous vers le bas sur lui ou elle? Est-il ou elle plus grande que la vie ou moins. Peignez-vous uniquement le visage ou tout le corps, position assis ou debout ...
et comment voyez-vous le visage: en face, 3/4 ou en profil?

Il est toujours bon de connaître les règles de base pour les proportions d’un visage! Essayez de vous rappeler le suivant: Si vous regardez votre modèle dans les yeux, sur la même hauteur...

La forme de base d'un visage est un oeuf
La dessous du nez est le milieu du visage (sourcils au menton)
La largeur des narines correspond à l'intérieur des yeux
La largeur de la bouche correspond à la moyenne des paupières
Les oreilles (plus grand que vous pensez !) commencent au niveau des yeux et se terminent au coin de la bouche...

Work from the Aquarelle Tuesday

'Confiture' by Cathie van der Stel

Last Tuesday was a very relaxed afternoon, with a small group of Aquarellistas who really enjoyed themselves, drinking tea, chatting, listening to Adèle - o, and of course working very hard and inspired, on several projects! Cathie finished her confiture painting for our cookbook-to-be and Sandra finished her Spring Poem... (scroll down to previous post for explanation)

Peinture de Printemps by Sandra Seymour-Dale

And Edith Alborni is working hard on her feather girl - it is getting more beautiful: Can't wait to see the finished version...

Mystery behind a peacock feather by Edith Alborni

 Edith also finished her leopard! Working on two paintings at the same time is a great thing with aquarelle (especially if it is not so warm and the paint doesn't dry fast). While one wash is drying, you work on the other painting, that way you never get bored and sometimes even get ideas how to proceed with the other one...

Edith Alborni's Leopard

Edith was not the only one who chose to do a beautiful though scary animal:

Crocodile, by Brigitte Jansen

Unfinished but already very interesting, both the crocodile above as the gecko below!

Red 'n white gecko by Mieke van Papen

It's Spring!

Agnes McLaughlin

 Last week the aquarellistas worked within the theme 'spring'... it was terrific fun! Flowers and birds were popular and appeared in many varieties... Above Agnes's love birds. True love in beautiful transparent colours. The foliage is washed out for extra spectacular result, if that isn't love I don't know what is!...

Brigitte Jansen

Brigitte really worked on the feeling of spring, which she expressed in these tulips and their delicate light.

Cathie van der Stel

Cathie is working on an abstraction of spring flowers. They suggest an atmosphere of spring because of their fragile transparency

Edith Alborni

Edith is working on a painting, inspired by an interesting photograph with a girl and a feather. The end result will be much darker than this, but the character is already visible!

Liz Douglas

Another work in progress, very funny birds with an odd one out, always nice. Painted in Liz's distinguishing colourful style - still with lots of masking fluid, but their naughtyness is 'peeping' out...

Mieke van Papen

Mieke took Irises to represent her sense of spring! She combined big brushstrokes with very fine one-hairbrush-lines. It worked out well and created a spontaneous fresh feel.

Monique Randazzo

She worked a long time, very carefully, on these wonderful feathers - the girl has admirable patience, Unbelievable that she actually just started with watercolours!

Sandra Seymour-Dale

Sandra didn't use a picture! She let herself be inspired by a spring poem (great idea!) to create this  original and funny painting in mixed technique - a combination of aquarelle and pen...

'Green slipped out

splashed in early other colors

Young men perked up

early bosoms

once again parading

it was happening with the birds'

Spectacular stripes

Lucia Gualtieri

With Pim in hospital we (the drawing group) use 'his' Monday mornings in an alternative way - last time without a model, but with inspiring pictures! Pictures have the advantage that they are two-dimensional and sit very still, and models on pictures can sit for 3 hours in complicated poses. For a couple of these pictures, we worked with white pen or crayon on black paper.

We worked very hard and the results (though not all were finished) were stunning! As you can see for yourself...

Marijke van Schijndel

Neville Moray

Claudie Deforge

Betty Schep

Sunni

Corinne

Karin

If you made it to this point, please scroll down as there is a blogpost by Webmaster Celina about a fantastic project of the sculpture class of Christie Robinson below this one!

Fish Project

The past weeks, Christie's afternoon sculpture/modelling class has been working on a fish project.

Fish can be built in various different ways, but for this project we decided on building the body using dishes as moulds. The clay was rolled out in an even thickness.

Anne - rolling out clay with a rolling pin and 2 sticks

Afterwards the clay was placed in round salad bowls.

Christie - smoothing out the clay after putting it in to a bowl

Next step: Dry the clay so that it isn't quite as soft as when it was rolled out. On Sunny summer days this is done outside the natural way - but we have not been blessed with good weather the last weeks.

Irene - drying her clay

When the two halves are half dry, they are taken out of the bowl and smoothed on the outside.

Titia - smoothing her 2 halves

Now the exciting bit starts - "glueing" the 2 halves together.

Celina and Irene - "glueing" the fish

Next step is to add all the details to change the "ball" made from the 2 halves in to a fish. Many comments floated about - "looks like Dumbo the elephant" - "not a fish - more like a flying saucer".

In the end they all looked like fish. Judge for yourself:

Irene's fish

Titia's fish

Celina's fish

Now they are all in the back room - slowly drying. They will be bisque fired in about a months time and hopefully we will find somewhere to do Raku glazing.

Tuesday Afternoon Aquarelle Watercolours - Marina

Aquarellista Zen Afternoon

Anna-Karin Fast painted the basis of this aquarelle a couple of years ago, wasn't happy with it and put it away... Last week she brought it and actually did some wonderful work on it! Mainly on the left side...

Liz Douglas has now added a background and some details and made her Carnival masks even more stunning...

Edith Alborni is almost finished with her last carnival picture, very well done!

The coming weeks we will do a bit of research on the subject of 'feathers'. Georgina Hole already worked on it this is her lovely version of a wavy blue austrich feather

Mieke van Papen started on the same project and created these two soft and subtle feathers. Wonderful work!