Live Model drawing - Marina Kulik - 31/01/2011

Meet last week's model drawing crew:

Click on the picture to enlarge

As you can see, there's deep concentration during the live model class... we had a great time last Monday, with one of our favourite models, Carolyn, who sat beautifully for 2 hours! But as always we started with a couple of quick poses - it's a good warming up and becuase there is no time to think, the drawings are always spontaneous and often surprisingly accurate!

...five short poses...

...and two longer ones... 

Hangar visit to the Hans Hartung Foundation

On Tuesday this week Anne-Marie Viborel had organized a visit to the Hans Hartung Foundation. About 20 members found their way to Antibes. The tour started with a presentation of the buildings and the property. We then moved on to see the section devoted to Anna-Eva Bergman. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and answers all our questions. We were shown some of her artwork – both illustrations for books and magazines and the abstracts she did later on in her life. They were stunning to say the least.

Hangar members looking at abstract versions of the coast of Finmark (Norway)

Inside the treasury – literally hundreds of her paintings and thousands of her illustrations.

Here we see “Silver Mountain”

The next part of the visit was to the Hans Hartung Section. We got to see his atelier. What really impressed us was the large selections of tools he used to create his masterpieces. We were also impressed by his productivity – and in the “exhibition” area, we go to see an example of what he was capable of producing in one day. We were shown many examples of his work from early days where everything was well planned and worked out – up until the last part of his life where his work was more spontaneous.

A selection of Hans Hartung’s painting tools

The result of a day’s work

Not only did Hans Hartung uses brushes – but a wide range of building materials.

by Celina Schou

An Abstract Marathon Session

A fairly good marathon runner will complete the distance in 3 hours. This is the same amount of time as we have on the Monday evenings to do our abstract painting. This Monday everyone was really energic and worked on their canvases as you can see from the paintings below. Everyone is preparing for the upcoming exhibition this summer in Theoule-sur-Mer. So far everyone has completed at least one painting – and the really fast painters are now on their fourth or fifth.

Merete Frickman, Marie Hélène Butet and Anne-Marie Viborel hard at work

Irene Olkkonen and Michele de Laat hard at work

Pim suggesting to Tatiana Koltchine what painting technique to use

by Celina Schou

Aquarelle - Roses without thorns continued

Last Tuesday the Aquarellista group got together for a healthy bit of creative sparring! We're going to participate in the Grand Prix d'aquarelle and in the coming time we'll do research and development around its' theme 'Roses without thorns'. In this first phase we are looking into the character of roses - to get to know them and their characteristics.

Edith Alborni's roses. The last one has a photoshop-background to show what an extra dark layer does

Marina Teding-van Berkhout practised her hand on a couple of roses from the

demo of Fabio Cembranelli (btw - I like her version better)

Cathie van der Stel went one step further with an experimental bouquet. Click on it to see a larger version!  

Ann Edwards finished her white still life and just started on roses in a vase. She will work on them tomorrow and I'll keep you posted on the results! Lesley and Roly Bufton worked on an excercise that tests your patience and ability to mix colours. They had to 'pixelize' a photo by dividing it in 1x1cm squares and for each square choose the dominant colour. Difficult, but they both did a great job:

The picture

Lesley Bufton's 'pixelization'

Roly Bufton's version of the exercise

Help me get to the finals of the Saatchi Showdown

I have a request for all of you artlovers out there: could you help me by voting on the artwork that I put up in the “Showdown” on the great “Saatchi” website? (interesting for all artists! Neville Moray and Fiona Biziou are on it too) To be able to vote for me you have to subscribe first, via http://www.saatchionline.com/

Fill out the blanks in “Join us it’s free” in the right upper corner of the webpage.

Remember your password!

Saatchi will then send you a confirmation email. Click the link…

Log in and type ‘Marina Kulik’ in the search field (top right),

Select me from the results and VOTE:

You can also go to my website http://www.marinakulik.com/ and click “vote for my artwork”

It is a challenge for you I know!! But I would be SO grateful because it is a onetime experiment and I am in the top quarter right now and it would be such fun to get to the finals!
If I succeed I'll let you know: even more voting necessary!
Thank you very much in advance for you votes...
In utter gratitude - and I'd do the same for you of course!
Marina Kulik

NELLY’S TUESDAY MORNING OIL CLASS

Abstract in oil by Charmian Murley

Tuesday mornings see a group of, on average, some 12 or so enthusiastic oil painters arrive for Nellie’s ‘Atelier Libre’.  As the choice of subject and technique is free, it is always interesting to go round and see what the other students are creating and what methods they are using.   

June and Avril discussing their work

From each other you learn a lot and dare to experiment with Nelly always on hand to gently advise, suggest and help when asked – but she never criticizes!  

Prof Nelly van Hijfte (R) and Trish Jones

 From time to time Nelly sets up a special class to study a particular technique or style or painting for those who are interested. 

Ladies (in Paris?) by Claudine Delaney

For the rest of the time only your imagination sets the limits.

Chameleon I by Charmian Murley

This is a very social group, always starting with coffee and cake before getting down to the real business of the day – creativity in oil.

Véronique Vandenhoeck enjoys her Tuesdaymorning...

Chris Herlicq

Dominique Billiard

Sherry Spetz

Aquarelle Tuesdays 2 - 4.30pm - Marina Kulik

Welcome to the zen watercolour afternoon - where Anna Karin Fast has worked so hard that her brush broke... It was the big one that she had used for a long, long time and while she was working on her "white still life" it gave up...

The "white still life" in question

Sandra Seymour-Dale's finished version

Cathie van der Stel's finished version

Edith Alboni started over and did a "less transparent" version

Anna Karin's wonderful aquarelle - finished with another brush...

There were other projects going on, especially by Marina Teding van Berkhout and Sandra Seymour-Dale that I will write about later, on the aquarellista blog... We have now finished the work on the white still life, the coming weeks we will dedicate to 'research and development' for the Belgian "Grand Prix d'Aquarelle" that we are going to participate in... so watch this space...