Flowers and villages in Aquarelle

Wild Iris by Mieke van Papen with a great use of light...

Last weeks' aquarelle session brought about all kinds of interesting and different results! Mieke, Cathie and Lies worked on their flowers using a combination of wet-in-wet and wet-on-dry techniques

Cathie van der Stel's gorgeous blow up of an orange daisy

Lies Timmermans worked on the wet-in-wet background of her lovely rose. She will complete it in the next session

Ann Edwards painted some tulips and this bird - enlarge it to see the excellent light on his beak, head and back that she drew with pencil, leaving it white and then giving the background in a very light warm yellow wash!

Six aquarellista's will show work with the theme 'Le Village' in an exhibition in September - Brenda Moorhouse is one of them and she worked on images she drew in ink during our Trip to Aiguefonde. She added watercolours to them and made them livelier and sunnier!

'Brassac 1' in watercolours and pen by Brenda Moorhouse

'Brassac 2' in watercolours and pen by Brenda Moorhouse

 

Edith Alborni diligently worked on her village and it is getting more and more real...

And completely off-topic but oh so great - the dewdrops of Cathie van der Stel that she made for the Summer Fête...

More about the Summer Fayre, a great success by the way, in coming posts, filled with pictures of you!

Hangar Spring Trip V

The afternoon of the last day was spent creating posters, in the style of Toulouse Lautrec, that would communicate the 'feeling' of the trip, and could be used (as a logo) in communication about the trip ... A difficult exercise, and the participants were working very serious and concentrated! Also, because there were going to be two jury commissions, the Public jury (the non-painters) and the Professional jury (Pim, Caroline, Paul and yours truly) who promised to be very strict... 4.30pm the work was done and we numbered the posters so that the jury would not know whose they were. The results were creative, funny and completely different from one another! (I still can't tell you exactly who made which one! but I'll give it a try, and please! fill in the blanks and let me know where I went wrong!)

 Baye, Betty and Brenda

Charmian, Gina and ?Pim?Gonnie?

 

Joop, Horst and Karin

 

Piep, ?Lies? Sherry? Lucy? Anton?, Titia

Then the Public jury was invited in... They all got 2 votes...

George Buter, Hennie Loerts and Jan Smit seriously busy judging...

Emmy Kulik, Arie van Limborgh and Henk Schep discuss the finer lines while participants Charmian and Gina think they can sneak out without being seen (ha! caught on camera!)

From the next stage, the judging of the profesional jury, I have no pictures: way too involved in that one, it was so difficult!! But that night -during another very good and well-decorated dinner- we could announce two winners (and two runners-up):

The winner of the Public Jury: Titia Buters' affiche!!

She received praise for the humorous and complete way she had expressed the atmosphere of the trip, and especially for the portrait of Anton playing guitar (so la la la la etc...) Her well-deserved prize will be presented in the Café Culture of September, dedicated to this trip.

And the winner of the Professional jury: the poster of Marij van Schijndel!

She received praise for the wonderful portraits that she did of Pim and myself (very flattered Marijke thank you), for the symbolic people holding hands, and for the useability as a logo for all communication concerning the Hangar trip! She also will receive her prize during the Rentree Café Culture in September...

No prize but definitely a honorary mention from the professional jury for Charmian Murley and Karin Geurtsen. And for all others, because actually, all affiches had their own character and Pim and I were very proud of all of you!!

After the main dish, Jan Smit gave a wonderful and funny speech to thank the teachers and Piep Tissot who organized our stay in the Chateau for this trip

And the three of us were not only applauded, we received a very heavy Toulouse Lautrec-'BOOK'  with 3 abslutely fantastic bottles of 2005 Gaillac from the Cave de Labastide de Levis (with Toulouse Lautrec labels!)

Thank you so much for this gift!! We appreciate it very very much!

After the desert, the serving-crew was invited and Anton Dikken gave a speech to thank them, and Caroline and Dario received envelopes with interesting content!

And Paul de Vilder, 'Seigneur de Aiguefonde', received a memory-poster, created by the teachers, picturing himself and with everybody's signatures on it. He liked it a lot, and promised to frame it and put it in view - Piep and Joop will soon check that out...

And that was the trip. I look back on it with a very happy feeling, and can't wait to go again! Pim thinks of Corsica next year, so who knows....?!

CLICK HERE FOR KARAOKE VERSION OF OUR SONG!!

Hangar Spring Trip V

In the morning we nourished our eyes, in Albi, where we visited the Musee Toulouse Lautrec (did anybody even wonder where the entrance tickets came from?).

The museum is housed in the former Bishops' Palace, built in the 13th century and next to the cathedral Sainte Cécile and it is a truly impressive fortress that houses over 1000 works, including the famous posters by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec...

Especially the Model Drawers appreciated the quick sketches of the 'girls' undressing, weren't they perfect!!

The posters were fantastic as well, as were the paintings and the overall history of this tiny but hugely talented guy...

At 12.30 the museum closed - and we went to the restaurant 'vieille Alby', that was booked for us, and only for us by Lies and Horst, familiar with Albi. And it was a great choice!! We had a very good lunch, I'll never forget the potatoe pancakes with cranberries that accompanied the duck...MMM

After lunch some went to see the rest of the exhibition and the others admired the imposing Cathedral Sainte Cécile next door.

It was very full of tourists, maybe also due to the heavy rain - but we burned candles and looked at the beautiful wooden sculptures in the choir, the intricate woodwork patterns and the immense paintings of judgement day...

And then it was back to the Chateau, with enough ammunition for the poster contest!

Hangar Spring Trip IV

And then on the second day of our Spring trip to Aiguefonde, there was the other group that wanted to discover the surroundings of the Chateau! The weather was great, and we started with a stroll - to decide who was going to draw what - and where... We found several fabulous spots, quite far apart and some very high up and yours truly lost a lot of weight running around to 'advise' everybody! But the results were in one word: excellent!!!

Betty Schep's romantic impression of one of the statues - jokingly called 'David on the phone'

Brenda Moorhouse drew wonderful a birds' perspective of the chateau, in pen and ink

Charmian Murley did two amazing drawings of the fountains - one shown here, both to be admired on the Trip Post Mortem Café Culture (date tba)

Gina Smit did a fantastic job with pencil on the mysterious ruin with the curious stone construction

 

Joop Kulik found a perfect location on top of the hill and made his daughter proud with his pen & watercolour work!

Karin Geurtsen tried out several materials, one of them pastels! The artwork has come out very interesting, in colour as well as composition - and Karin was green all over...

Marij van Schijndel was on a roll and did three excellent drawings. With a very good David on the phone - click the picture for more detail

Sherry Spetz did several try outs of which the white chair came out best! 

 Titia Buter experimented with the combination of colour and simple lines to give David a bit of decorum. It works...

This is the group, waiting for their quick lunch! After which they hurried back for more drawing and painting

The evaluation of the work of both groups by the teachers...

...and another delicious dinner - for those who like rognons (kidneys)

Hangar Spring Trip III

On the second day, a part of the artists group undertook a trip to the wonderful, high up in the Midi-Pyrénees, village of Hautpoul. We were told that to enter the village gates you first had to climb a terribly steep path, but that the view was one hundred percent worth it... (The other half stayed in the chateau because there was truly enough inspiration there for several days...).

It turned out to be not such a bad climb and Gonnie, Lies, Horst, Baye, Anton, Piep and Lucy drew the city wall, the gates and the streets in sepia ink. And then had a wonderful lunch in Hautpoul's only restaurant (that happened to be owned by people from the Côte d'Azur!) where Pim did another hilarious conference (this is all hearsay! I wasn't there - so correct me if I got it wrong... )

Below some of the artwork, and the rest will be exhibited during the Post Mortem Café Culture (to be announced)

The old stone city wall with loopholes, by Horst Timmermans

Anton Dikken drew the same subject

Beautiful impression of the gates in Hautpoul

pen drawing washed in with sepia and blue ink by Baye Loerts 

Lies Timmermans hard at work on her version

Gonnie, Lies, Piep, Lucy and Baye watch how Pim demonstrates 'washing in with ink'

Some of the results of 'the other half' - that worked on the (surroundings of the) chateau will be posted next time!

Hangar Spring Trip II

(click on the pictures for full screen versions)

The Trip Affiche designed by Marij van Schijndel

On Thursday 12 May the 16 artists (and 2 profs) woke up and had their excellent first breakfast in the Chateau Aiguefonde... 9.30 sharp they departed in the direction of Brassac, to draw the 'long perspective' along the river l'Agout with its interesting bridges, that Pim and Gonny had discovered during their exploring trip... It wasn't warm to say the least and especially windy under the bridge...

 

The impressive town hall & postoffice building across the river 

- pen drawing by Horst Timmermans

Luckily we could warm up during an excellent lunch in the nearby restaurant, with sausages & lentils or penne & cheese, wine and lots of discussion, fun and jokes - all about art of course -  and in the meantime... the sun returned!  

The houses across the river

- pen and washed ink by Karin Geurtsen

 

 Back in the Chateau some couldn't help themselves and kept working on their drawings...

 Evaluation of the first day creations

 By the way: to see all the work, come to the 'Trip Post Mortem' Café Culture, date to be announced!

And the first day was finalized with another fantastic dinner cooked by chef (and Seigneur du Chateau) Paul de Vilder... Between the courses, the schedule for day two was announced, as well as the first outlines of the Great Poster Contest and former Hangar president Anton Dikken led us all in singing the 'SO LA LA LA LA LA' song ('Everything' by Michael Bublé).
Hear the song - and you'll think of the trip!!!