The Aquarellista Expo '50x50' has taken off!

 

On Friday 23 May our small format expo finally opened! The Thursday before we put the artwork up, 50 aquarelles in tasteful black and white wooden frames, of 20x20 centimeters. We did it all in such a good mood, it was clear to see how well we function as a group! Everybody assumed some tasks and we were done pretty quickly... Afterwards we were all excited by how good it looked!

And then we were ready for the visitors...

 

They slowly started to come in, until the vernissage started - that was when we really had a full house and sold the first 8 pictures, as well as a lot of our 'cocktail' postcard sets...

 

We closed the doors around 8pm and went for a nice dinner to celebrate...

We have decided to open the doors for the public on Thursday (29 May) from 2 - 5pm, Friday 30 May from 10 am - 5pm, and Sunday all day, with cocktails and nibbles from 3pm.
If you prefer another day to visit - let us know, we are most willing to open up if we know someone's interested!

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Until 10 January the Aquarellistas won't come to the Hangar for their weekly 'Zen' Tuesday afternoon.

We had our last gathering on 20 December and it was cosy as always, and they gave me the most wonderful gift, a beautifully wrapped handmade Christmas card, with tiny delicate aquarelles on it, put together and made into a 'whole' by Sandra Seymour Dale... I was very touched and also very excited that I now actually have an original collection of some of the aquarellistas' work in my possession!!

'Small Guardian Angel' by Bibbi Isaksson

Ball & Tree by Edith Alborni

Xmas puppets by Cathie van der Stel

Christmas Rose by Brigitte Jansen

Wicked wish by Sandra Seymour-Dale

Small Christmas apple by Anna Karin Fast

Fun in the snow by Agnes McLaughlin

Snow Man by Liz Douglas

Christmas quartet by Lesley and Roly Bufton

Robin by Helene van der Kroft

 I'll use my weeks-off to frame this wonderful gift!

Aquarelle Tuesdays 2 - 4.30pm - Marina Kulik

Aquarellistas from high heels to barefoot - and more...

Liz Douglas' grapes, ready for eating - or drinking...

'On their way to George' by Agnes McLaughlin

Dreamy portrait of a girl by Edith Alborni

Fabulous slingback by Brigitte Jansen

Amazing painting of true fatigue. By Sandra Seymour-Dale

Feet need a cool down by Liz Douglas

Swans in a Swedish lake by Anna-Kartin Fast

Mean mean stiletto by Mieke van Papen

The start of a rhythmic, graphic picture of windows by Lesley Bufton. What you see here are the first washes. They have warm colours and the final result will therefore be warm, even if the windows and shadows will be shades of (cold) blue...

Roly Bufton tried his hands on a Provence landscape, and did a good job! Note how well the dark/light contrast works (esp. on the trees)... One more to go in 2011! and then on to a new artistic year...



Watercolour class on Tuesday afternoons

On Tuesday afternoons the Hangar offers a watercolour class, with yours truly as a teacher. We start 2pm and finish painting 4.30pm, and after that we have a line up and evaluation...

I always suggest a subject, and sometimes all join in creating their variations on that theme. This is very interesting because you see the surprising differences in style and personal view... I'll show you some of that later because we have a small group of starters, working on the same exercises and already showing a wonderful variety in design and expression.

Lately, most of the advanced participants have brought their own ideas and subjects, and I thought it would be nice to show you some of the results of that...

Yachts

Roly Bufton loves the sea and everything to do with watersports... here you see his silhouette looking at a classic boat  and below work in progress.. on another classic boat.

Landscape

In our Aquarellista group the theme 'landscape' often means something quitre different from the ordinary.

Like this one by Sandra Seymour Dale

Or this colourful and poetic forest painted by Anna Karin Fast. She used handmade paper of another type and the effect of this paper is amazing: the paint granulates so much more than on our regular Arche Torchon (enlarge picture by clicking it to appreciate what this looks like)

A weird yet very interesting landscape with great perspective by Hélène van der Kroft

This more classic landscape was created by a guest, Ellie. It is very well done - and will most definitely be stunning when the shadows of the village are added...

Still life

Fantasy still lifes by Liz Douglas and Brigitte Jansen (below), inspired by the starter exercise on 'transparency'. Note the differences, knowing that they worked from the same example in the 2nd Hangar Watercolour Book 

China still life by Cathie van der Stel with experimental background, made with wet aquarelle paint and cling film

Cup designed by Lies Timmermans, with her initials

 Surrealistic still life with many interesting aspects by Bibbi Isaksson

Next week - People, Animals, Halloween and more...

Sandra Seymour Dale: Aquarellista!

Sandra Seymour Dale is from the UK but lives and works in France. Her work is very special and personal: strong, in colour as well as subject and always very creative, often experimental, with other materials. Her style shows mastery, her subjects, together with the specific tonality, make her paintings sometimes slightly unnerving - It's art and I'm a big fan!

In Casablù she shows three very special impressions of villages - and in this blog you can also see Sandra Seymour Dale's view on portraits and roses...

Fishing Village at dusk

Volcano - experiment with kitchen paper

Botox girl

Come to mama

 Spice girl

Rose 1

Rose 2