EXPO Theme III: Hidden (abstract) Villages & Christmas card ideas..

We continue with our expo theme, 'Hidden Villages' and as you will see below, there are a lot of great ideas and serious gems to be admired. Such cool work!

Marie-Françoise is definitely on a roll! The fabulous hidden village above is an atmospheric masterpiece and after she finished that, she quickly magicked the abstract below. I love it!!

Glen is in a similar mood, she produced 'Hidden Gourdon' above and started an abstract village that is going to be a lot of work after she returns from her travels in 2 weeks - but totally worth it!

This misty mysterious wonder of a village is painted by our hero Anna Karin. With a very clever use of dry and wet ways of painting. And of course the colour mix of indigo with Opera Rose, making it just a little bit more interesting.

This will in a later stage be a village hidden behind olive branches. But first the masking fluid has to dry. Charley started the project and also did research on the characteristics of Olives, resulting in this lovely piece:

Martine is having a good time with a small brush and very geometrical shapes that will end up being an abstract village! Watch this space for more!

And now for something completely different, Glen started with a very different kind of abstract village, more simplified and with lots of rounded shapes, very promising! We will have to wait a couple of weeks for the next step as she is travelling the coming time...


This WIP by Sue is already so full of atmosphere! mid-below is a bit of cling film that will give an exciting effect when the paint has dried. And there is masking, and amazing colours and the loose touch so typical of Sue. Absolutely stunning, already.


Marina (that would be me) started very abstract with a piece of paper, a couple of pieces of tape and wet-in-wet painting. Byy way of demo. And somehow it ended up very cutesy,and not-so abstract with the snow. But great fun was had.

Not really a  hidden village,not meant for the expo, but landscapy and that counts too- Ingrid painted this as a card for a loved one. It looks like a fantastic memory!

Sonya created this Stunning Northern light (with a hidden village). It really shows the fantastic forces of nature. I am in awe.

Al-most finished, Sandra's still life. It is so transparent and playful, I can't stop looking at it to discover more new things. A couple of tweaks and then it will be done, can't wait!

And then there is our Christmas Corner.

 Glen produced a couple of great Christmas cards, it is a whole collection! she stuck them on coloured cards, which gives a very beautiful finishing touch! Here's inspiration for you...

EXPO Theme II: Silhouettes of (hidden) Villages & Christmas

We are still in preparation-mode for the expo in a wonderful space close by that we are applying for! To honour the theme 'Hidden Villages' we were painting silhouettes of villages. We had a great afternoon, and it was so nice and creative that I forgot to take pictures. Sigh. Which means that there are less images in this blog than we created - but I will make it up to you next week!

Corinne

Anne

Martine

 
WIP by Anna-Karin, an amazingly lush wet-in-wet background. There must be a village hidden in there somewhere...

Slowly, the Christmas cards and bookmarks are getting shape too!

Corinne produces a couple of them every week and they are getting better and better!

Charlie is back and on a roll, these are just some of her personalized bookmarks and the card bottom left is a sketch for her hidden (behind olive trees) Village. Great idea!!

We have a new aquarellista, Jetske. She is an experienced painter that loved the spheres exercise - and look how wonderful it fits the Christmas card spirit!

Marie-Françoise works on a wonderful Hidden Village but that is not yet finished - and in the meantime she also worked on her bookmarks (above) with red borders, very good idea! and Christmas cards (below)

Anna-Karin  worked on a couple of new Christmas cards, this is one of them...

 

 

Laura and Roxane created good stuff too - more about that next week!

 

Expo Theme: Hidden Villages in Aquarelle.

Due to all kinds of things happening, I have not been able to write comments on the excellent work of the Aquarellistas this week! But I will post the wonderful results here and hope you will be inspired by it - I am sure you understand the beauty anyway.

First of all some 'Villages' - within our Expo theme 'hidden Villages'

Corinne's beautiful Fountain (in a village)

Roxane's amazing Iranian village in Payne's Grey pigment

Martine's WIP of a city in wet-and wet and a finished pre-existing Village.

Janine's wonderful Wedding in Vence

Then there was Nature

Anne's gorgeous wet-in-wet landscape and below, her awesome interpretation of dry wood

Sonya's outstanding birch trees with wet in wet /Salt background

WIP by Janine, Wet-in-wet

Then we had the continuing Christmas projects:

Above and below, wonderful wreaths by Sue

Lovely Christmas tree (card)s by Sonya

WIP by Glen - cool Christmas cards

And last but by no means least: the personal initiatives (all in red! Coincidence, yet funny)...

Marie-Françoise's Wet-in-wet Poppies

Thecla's as always original Abstract

and Anne's fab Wet in Wet version of the Red Sails

A start with Christmas cards combined with Wet-in Wet painting in Aquarelle

It's been a great Halloween and we're now slowly going towards Christmas. Really slowly, but still - cards are in the making. We will continue with that - next to our other projects, and also design personalized bookmarks.
But last weeks' main thing was still 'Wet in Wet'. We keep experimenting and the results are even better this time!

Corinne was the first to design some cards. The pictures don't do them justice, apart from colour, there is also gold leaf and golden pen here!




We all thought Laura's wet-in-wet lilies are a masterpiece. So powerful! And she had plenty of time left to do another painting...


Anne's next landscape with colourful sunset. It is so strong and in the actual painting the yellow is more visible so that the light of the sun is even stronger. Love it!

Thecla continued with the second layer of her wet-in-wet experiment and she now has a collection of honestly amazing cards. My favourites are the star and the tattoo but I definitely love them all!

Marie-Françoise absolutely outdid herself with two wonderful wet-in-wet paintings. Both the poppies and the watery landscape (not finished) are so good!

Sonya loved the experiment and painted two gorgeous watercolours - the one above had some damage when the blue tape did not stick too well (reminder to always press that well) but it will be repaired!
And the one below is WIP of birch trees




Janine works on a commission but while that dries she works on other things, like this first wash of a very wet landscape...

after her splendid lilies Laura started a painting, based on a pointilistic work by Fauvist painter Derain. She worked wet-in-wet and will continue next time to create that wild colourful effect!

Anna Karin worked on her leaves, still some work to do, but it is so good and so typical for her, with wet-in-wet everywhere, and a lot of negative painting (to leave out the leaves). And of course a Swedish autumn-touch: it will be very dark when finished. Awesome!

Janine's project is progressing very well!

Ingrid finished her version of the fauvist painting, it is so strong and colourful. Also fantastic details and... we detected Spiderman in it 😀She also started with a very personal birthday card. It is going to be different from what you see now as the beautiful balcony will be white (this is masking fluid)  - and there will be Palm Trees and sea in the view...