Painting glass in Aquarelle

 Celina really knows how to paint her glasses!

 

For the second Tuesday in a row we dedicated the Aquarellista session to the fabulous Norwegian Kunstglas from Celina's collection. She brought different glasses, so it felt new - and everybody was enthusiastic again about the possibilities!

Liz's interpretation of the Kunstglas. The dark grey is masking fluid - it will be the reflection of the light (the white of the paper) when removed. It is going to be spectacular...

New Aquaellista Jane blended in as if she had always been there! Welcome to Jane & her watercolours!

O-it was Halloween... Great idea of Elia, to combine the orange glass with a pumpkin - and a scary spider that will be finished next time... (shiverrr)

🍸🍷🍹

Cathie worked on a version too abut my photo was too unsharp. I'll show you next time.

Next to the glass, other excellent watercolours were produced too:

This awesome still life by Carol for instance...

And the big green whale, jumping out of the water - you guessed right, Patience painted it!

Same Patience also added explosive fire to her just-emergency landed plane

An amazing portrait already, unfinished yet fitting perfectly in the 'essence of' series. 

Our other new Aquarellista is Julie. She is a starter, but look at her abstract work of last Tuesday... the colours are absolutely brilliant!

Cathies paint tubes continued... They are getting shape now and the dark background works very well. They are SO Good!!

Cute Couples

Guest Aquarellista Annabel Clarke painted this characterful image. I love everything about it, the style, the colours, the composition - and the subject. Big compliment!

Subject du jour was 'Old Couples' last Aquarellista Tuesday, and we decided that many of them have the same effect on us as baby animals. A big AWWWW factor... Have a look for yourself...

 

Work in progress by André. He will leave the couple white (rub out the pencil lines) and create a vibrant abstract background

Fabulous watercolour by Liz... Are they going to the dance? Or returning from it... 'She' definitely has dancing feet!

Fragile and so lovely, this old couple by Elia B. (in progress)

And how about this pair - painted by Michele. It is very well-observed and also she outdid herself with the dark contrasts!

 Cathie worked on an old single - as you can see it is super textured, her speciality! This is a watercolour, on canvas, with a thick, irregular layer of gesso.

  

 An other texture watercolour by Cathie. Same technique, totally gorgeous!!

Carol finished her fabulous  still life with garlic... 

 ...and started a new one with pomegranates. A complicated one that will keep her busy in the holidays 😜

'Carol at the Hangar' by Patience. This kind of small portraying happens often in our group! It is so much fun to secretly sketch one of the hardworking and not-noticing aquarellistas...

 Patience was on a roll last Tuesday. With the motto 'Less is More', she wrote down some other famous quotes, on an interesting abstract background - on a big piece of rough-grain paper...

And with the same intention painted this fabulous abstract. Enlarge it by clicking, it contains so many surprising shapes - and is also beautiful to just look at as a whole... Well done!!

Sandra is working on this still life with spring onions that has such a fantastic indian summer light...  

And last but by no means least, this a-ma-zing street orchestra in Paris by Agnès! No doubt it will be in her blog soon - in finished form, but I already love it in this setup. Note how the transparent tape, used to mark the border actually functions as a curtain...

  It is not the first musical painting for Agnès: during the Hangar-25 year party, she got the inspiration to create  this fabulous, colourful painting of the band!

Dancing Watercolours...

Last week we had our first watercolours session of 2016. With two new participants and Catherine back after a really long time! I have nothing but praise for all three of them! As suggested subject I brought old ballet shoes. Real, very used ones. A great subject for watercolours, because they let the satin flow, without getting 'kitschy'... Also you can read a little bit of all these different characters we have in the class... The shoes stay the same - but the interpretations are so different

 Andrée painted a couple of strong sturdy balerinas. You can see you count on them!

 Michele's shoes are a bit more delicate and slender, but also firm and funny...

 Liz's has caught the glow and tenderness -and added a ribbon in a contrasting colour.

 Linda has given her ballet shoes real character. They are lighthearted and eager to dance

 Edith has created dancing shoes that are ready to step on their pointes, and they are so blue...

 Very colourful and daring - but still soft, Agnès's ballet shoes! 

 BTW- Have you checked out her blog yet? This is the link:http://hobbysketcher.com/

These soft and tender ballet shoes are amazing, even more so if you know that Carole had never painted with watercolours until she joined us just before the summer! What a talent!

And then there's Cathie's dancing polkadot shoes... 

I'm pretty sure this is one of her entries for the  All Hangar 'Quel Cirque' exhibition... They can be worn by a lovely tasteful clown - but definitely also by a ballet dancer!

Apart from all that dancing stuff, there was more beautiful and interesting painting going on!!
 

Sylvie worked on her impressive composition with Lions... There's more to this picture than you think - you wait until you see the next stage in the next post...

Note thar red is a colour which comes forward: the two red lions are SO in front of the painting!

Sandra spent her time playing with a mix of darks 'n lights, fine vs huge lines and happy & sad. Interesting! She will finish it after her trip...

And last but not least, Celina's washing-then volume-exercise. Looks good already! Celina is an experienced painter who will try out watercolours for a while to see if it is something for her...

(She learnt already: Don't wear sweaters with black dog-hair on them, the hairs will no doubt (Murphy) fall on the wet parts - where it is the most difficult to remove them without making stains...

Wolves, Flowers and Fruit - Tuesday 27 October - Zen Watercolour afternoon in the Hangar

Really Stunning Tulips by Sandra

Music - check, Tea - Check, Cookies - Check! On top of that Agnès brought Cider-with-not-so-much-alcohol and fabulous coconut cake for her birthday. All that, combined with a group of enthusiastic users of our transparent watery flowy capricious medium - what can go wrong... Nothing! Everything was exactly right - and better. (is that possible?) Here's what we did that afternoon:

 Unwrapped Pears by Cathie

 Amazing Still Life by Liz - she created this watercolour while managing the plumbers in her house 2 weeks ago. Now that's the right kind of multi-tasking!

On that date (Liz missed out) we had a visit from a man who fights for the protection of wolves in our area.

He had 2 real ones in the back of his car (very friendly, we were allowed to pet them - but huge, and dangerous if you don't know how to handle them). This was very impressive and of course it inspired some of us!

 She-wolf in the snow by Edith - what a character!

 Almost finished - wolf peeking through the birches by Liz

Foxy wolf by Agnes 

Funny to see that if you add the colour red to the fur of the wolf, it becomes foxy! I'm sure it is the brain that does that :)

The starter group was not allowed to be inspired, they had to work on the layers-exercise: Create this view from the river in 4 layers... First the sky with stars (dark blue and leave out the stars - difficult!)

Wait until dry, then colour the orange layer for the windows and the river. Leave out whites for the reflection of the stars... When dry, paint the buildings, leaving out orange squares and rectangles to suggest illuminated windows, and then create light waves in the water leaving out the reflecion of the stars...

They did really well!!

 Sylvie's creation after 3 layers. She has painted a 'Paquebot' instead of a city. Do you see it?

 Cora did a very good job here. She is now working with us from Italy and as soon as she's settles in she will send pics of her results!

Carol's lovely painting - with reflection of the stars scratched out. Great effect!

 (funny how all three are done exactly the same way and all three are still so different)

Next time another layer-exercise, with more room for imagination. Linda and Carol have already started, and their paintings look very promising! Watch this space for more next week!