Aquarelle Tuesday with Cathie van der Stel!

Agnès painted these Perfect Pods - better than the real thing!

 

Pods 'n Pansies 

On Tuesday 26 February yours truly happened to be in Austria, doing all kinds of things in the snow (one of them actually painting!) Co-teacher Cathie van der Stel took over and brought live pansies - as well as pictures... The aquarellistas gave it a go, and below are the results:

 

 

Anna-Karin's aquarelle, so well painted with only the big pointy brush, no pencil.

The blue is lovely - and do I see a bit of green?

 

 

Agnès painted this one after she was done with the pods (I guess, wasn't there)

Love the spoon in the foreground, it adds so much to the composition!

Christiane created a dreamy spring-like picture of pansies (clearly on their way to the sun!).

 

And spring it is for Liz who started working on this big sphere - interesting!

I'm curious to see what it will end up like...

© The originals of the pictures used are by Syd Aneay (bubbles Liz) and Ematerre (pansies Christiane)

'Valbonne Monologues' Launch

Last year, somewhere in April, the author Chris France modelled (fully dressed) for a full and enthusiastic drawing class.

Some of the participants reworked their drawings into paintings, and from those, after a breathtakingly exciting finale, Chris chose one of the excellent paintings for the cover of his new book, 'The Valbonne Monologues'.

The winner was Sandra Seymour-Dale's watercolour-with-a-twist, exactly the style that Chris was looking for - and he was very impressed with the other paintings as well, that is why they are all printed in full colour in the book! By the way, also the Hangar and its surroundings, as well as several artists and teachers are mentioned...

 

If you are interested you can pre-order the book via chrs.france@gmail.com or you can come to the festive launch in Valbonne on Friday morning 15 March from 10.30 in Café Latin, as well as Saturday the 16th, same time, same location...

Aquarelle, Tuesdays 2-4.30pm with Marina Kulik

Downloading the Aquarellistas' work of last week I felt so proud all of a sudden! If you have a look at what everybody created, you can see those completely different personalities, picking up on different aspects of a subject and still there remains some kind of link. All the work has a certain poetry, that is not only due to the use of aquarelle...

I brought dry pods and mumbled in an email that it might be interesting to work monochrome and then forgot about that part - but monochrome it was for almost everybody as you can see below!!

 

'A hearty English breakfast'

Humour (baked beans and sausage in the foreground) and as always 'a little story' by Agnes

Anna-Karin finished her 'frosty pines'.

She achieved much depth and it's truly cold out there!

Chistiane's 'pods'

Not yet finished, but great shapes! And standing out against the sky. 

Anna-Karin's 'pods'

She created these in 10 minutes in just a couple of brush strokes. Very well done with the shadows - and not monochrome (click on the picture to enlarge so you can appreciate the colours better) 

'Pods' by Edith

Like Anna-Karin's they are on a white surface and they get great volume because of the shadows

 

'Voyage'

Cathie is working for an expo with the theme 'voyage' and created these symbols of travel (backpacking?) in almost monochrome...

'Rosehib'

Constanza took the only colourful dry object that I brought and created this very subtle and lovely aquarelle.

 'Mask' by Wendy

This is an exercise from our Aquarelle exercise book, that covers all the subjects: transparency, flowing, sphères, highlights, contrast, shadow, skincolour and lifting... and even a bit of anatomy (the distance between eyes...)

Edith's finished 'Icy Sea-through'



Still unfinished but surely another very interesting painting by Sandra.

The pose of the woman is so expressive - and the shapes that suggest wings, and the colours... A lot of meaning behind this one. The not-so-interesting grey shape below left is the band of my camera, sorry! One of the following posts I promise a bit of extra attention for this one to make up for that mistake ☺

'Dutch snow scape' by Liz

Amazing colours, it is a bright day, the sun clearly peeps through, making it a bit less cold!

Liz experimented with masking fluid - that's how she could do the white branches on the right. Would have been quite a challenge otherwise...

Live Model Drawing - with Marina

Every other Monday morning we draw a model. In the 'regular' sessions (sometimes we do different things) our goal is to create drawings that 'catch' the essence of model and we do that in 3 different ways: With very quick poses, of 1 or max 2 minutes; with these poses you have no time to think or criticise yourself while you draw! The resulting drawings are often just a couple of lines, they have a spontaneous character and seem to 'move'

Karin's spontaneous and moving quick sketch! Great work!

 

Anita drew smaller pictures and combined them thus creating an interesting page

 

After this 'warming up' we proceed with poses that last around 10 minutes. We use that time to try out things, crayons, colour and styles - drawing just the outlines, or the empty spaces, or the background... While others concentrate on creating the perfect proportions...

 

Probably because Marie-Jo is such a beautiful and inspiring model (yes she will be there again next time) many of the drawings were particularly well done as portraits

 

Neville Moray

 

 Charmian Murley

Anita Frenkel

 

Claudie Deforge

 

After a well-deserved coffee break (because it truly is hard work, model drawing) we use the last hour for just one pose. There is no result obligation, experiment is welcomed, yet often these drawings are very good, even from the less-experienced participants!

Claudie

 

Betty

 

Gaby (well done! sorry for the bad quality of my photo)

 

 Interested to join? Don't hesitate to let us know, we welcome new participants, experienced or beginners...

 

Neville Moray



THE NEXT HANGAR TRIP

THE HANGAR TRIP
Edition 2013

 

Here's the latest for your agendas:
Pim and I are planning a trip to CAHORS
 

 

A beautiful, interesting medieval city in the Lot (Midi-Pyrénées), an amazing area with breathtaking views, ditto landscape... and famous wine...

Very suitable for drawing and painting and having a (cultural and artistic) GOOD TIME!!

 

Pont Valentre

 

Hôtel Roaldes

 

Château Cahors

We're aiming for the first two weeks of May
...
More details will follow!

Aquarelle Tuesdays, 2-4.30pm with Marina Kulik

Agnes normally doesn't use masking fluid, but she gave it a go with the snow on the sculpture. It did not work out the way she wanted - but actually showed the 'city pollution' quite well. That gave it a somewhat engaged look.

Strangely, the pollution doesn't show on my picture of the painting! The snow is pretty and white here...

 

Last week most aquarellistas were skiing or otherwise engaged in the snow, or entertaining their kids because of half-term, or even as far away as Madrid to check out important museums and restaurants ☺

That left us with a small group - but we were comforted with lots and lots of tea, cookies, chocolate and lovely music! Time went superfast while we painted 'snowscapes'...

Have a look at the first results: 

 

 

Edith worked on this exciting, cold cold, seaview.

She will soften the hard lines caused by the masking fluid, which will give an even 'icier' effect!

Icy landscape by Liz - we all agreed that the lake is absolutely stunning already!

Coming post you'll see the villa in the background finished...

 

Anna-Karin did two extraordinary things: she used masking fluid, and... 'Green'!

Both worked out fine (the light on the needles as well as the colour green she normally doesn't choose) and she absolutely stayed true to her own, direct style!

Wendy - who succesfully finished her last starter-exercise, is now part of the Advanced group! She worked on this image to paint a 'slice' of earth with plants and roots in it. She's not yet there, but it is definitely a great idea! To be continued...

Wendy also experimented with masking fluid and showed us all what a great, batik-like effect you can achieve with it!

And last but not least, here's is a part of Wendy's practice sheet that I especially like

Although Cathie worked on the portrait for personal reasons, nothing to do with our regular Tuesday program, she finished it during our session and I just want to show you what a great  portrait artist she is.

Aquarelle Tuesdays from 2 - 4.30pm with Marina Kulik

Cut-outs from abandoned paintings

Last week the Aquarellistas triggered their fantasy with a fun subject: we put torn pieces of old, rejected paintings on the nicely stretched white paper and let ourselves be inspired by what was there... The challenge of course is in the fantasy part, but also in the connection, the composition and accurately matching the colours. As you can see below, interesting things happened, it is amazing (and great) how a group of people that get along so well (they all like tisane, healthy cookies and Adele's music) creates such completely different work!!

 

Anna-Karin's stunning, light and balanced composition.

(Jim should recognise something here... )

As always a playful image by Agnes!

It started out as an abstract, but with watercolours... you never know!

Christiane's free-flowing design, we all agreed we would love to have a scarf with these colours!

Liz had yet another take on the project, she created this keyhole, peeping out on the cut out (with part of a car...)

 Both Mieke and Cathie didn't finish their paintings, but made a good start.
Cathie with a fantasy-tree ...

 ...and Mieke with a bird...

Wendy worked on this lovely picture of a happy horse with a flower in his mouth...

 

 

And then there were some other projects going on!

Just like the week before, Edith finished work that she started before her move to another house (I admire her stamina!)

The candy jar (or 'les bonbons') is finally done, and it is totally wonderful, with a lot of beautiful détails...

Sandra worked on two pictures of women figures at the same time, the above is a work in progress with impressive light...

And this one you need to click and enlarge to really appreciate the detail of the transparent fabric she is covered with...