Christmas Expo in Chateauneuf

And the aquarellista's are exhibiting again! From the 11th until the 19th of December you can admire the aquarelles of Bibbi Isaksson, Birgitta Engvall, Sandra Seymour-Dale, Denise Holt, Cathie van der Stel and Marina Teding van Berkhout on the walls of the Mediathèque of Chateauneuf. Other work of those aquarellista's and the others is also lined up in a stand, and I can recommend browsing a bit: there are wonderful watercolours there (most of them have been published on this blog) that can be yours for (very!)  reasonable prices...

The opening hours are from 10 - 12 am and 14 - 17 pm.

The address: Rue du Pontis (next to the church) Chateauneuf de Grasse

Waterlilies in Chateauneuf

Anna Karin Fast worked for a long time on these "pebbles"... It is an interesting development to follow, with the pebbles attracting more attention because the background is contrasting more... 

Again we were a small group of die-hards last time. Same reason as last week for most - flu, nasty colds and other winter-illnesses hit hard at the moment! But the aquarellista's-present, did a great job on yet more impressions of Chateauneuf!

Sandra Seymour-Dale started on a very interesting watercolour - can't wait to see the finished product!!

Cathie van der Stel finished this fabulous and romantic door in the village...

And Birgitta Engvall did it again - what a mysterious, quiet atmosphere!

We also worked on another subject, "water lilies". Not all of those are finished, you'll see them in next post, but two are definitely worth showing now!

First of all Denise Holt visited. Originally French, she lives and works in the US. She is an aquarellista too and as long as she is visiting France, she'll work with us! Here are her water lilies:

And Anna Karin Fast did a version - in her typical, spontaneous and "fast" style

More later - I will participate in "les petitis formats", an exhibition organised by the artothèque of neighbouring village Valbonne - and I will be posting about that for sure...

5 Aquarellista's present...

Last week most members of our aquarellista group were in bed with severe colds - but five die-hards were present! We had a fabulous afternoon, with lots of tea, extensive discussions about composition, colours and contrast, and deep concentration! There was a "plants" group (Anna Karin and Bibbi) and a "Chateauneuf village" group (Sandra and me) and then Cathie - who worked on both!

Anna-Karin Fast worked on her tomatoes,
aren't they gorgeous...:

Amongst other things Bibbi Isaksson painted this
stunning waterlily (very large size as usual :))

Cathie van der Stel started -and finished- these gorgeous
stylized flowers

And Sandra and I have started working on Chateauneuf Village, I painted a view of one of these lovely little streets and Sandra started on a great looking door (the old village has many of those! Cathie is painting one too...)

Work in progress: Sandra Seymour-Dale's door in Chateauneuf, autumn leaves to come...

View on a sunny street by Marina Kulik

View on the village

Detail of "View on St Tropez" by Cathie van der Stel & Marina Kulik

This post is not about a project the aquarellista's have done, this is about something we may do in the coming weeks! As we are going to participate in the second exhibition in the Salle Pontis in Chateauneuf - because they really wanted us back - I 'd like to suggest to create all kinds of views of Chateauneuf... That could be the village itself, it is a truly lovely place, on top of a hill -

or we could also paint some of the many, absolutely fabulous romantic little streets inside the old center...

Below a couple of examples of views on villages - and we'll be back in two weeks with similar pictures, but now with Chateauneuf as subject!

View on St Tropez, the full painting by Cathie & Marina

Place des Arcades in Biot

View on Cannes

View on Antibes

The Chateauneuf Expo

As promised, I'd post any article that would appear about our Hangar Exhibition. And there actually was one, in last week's Letter of the Mayor, the bimonthly magazine of the "Commune de Chateauneuf". Typically, there are no pictures of our aquarelles in it. This proves again that Aquarelles need a lot of publicity, so spread the word! Right now it is an acquired taste - not everybody likes it, mostly because it is not understood (and maybe people aren't interested in art with poetic beauty, subtlety and transparence??!!) And then of course there's the challenge that I mentioned before, that if you combine oil (or acrylic) paintings with aquarelles, you won't see the latter! That's why I always try to have exhibitions with sculptors. I can recommend that... Anyway, here's the article:

Not bad at all and at least it mentions us! And the very good news is that we will be there AGAIN from 10 - 20 December!

Exhibition in Chateauneuf - the Vernissage!

And then the expo opened...We started with great drinks and appetizers and an informal speech "en Provençal" by the mayor of Chateauneuf (R), who by the way told us he was very impressed by the quality of the work - and he wasn't making that up: he is going to write an article in the Chateauneuf Newspaper about it!! (I'll make sure I get that and scan it and post it - with a translation)

After the mayor's words, the president of our atelier, Anton Dikken (L) spoke -with quite a bit of humor in it - and that left the audience in such a good mood that some good deals were done on paintings - and especially those of the aquarellista's I might add (I am proud of you)!!

A lot of people visited the vernissage, but also the following days there has been a lot of interest!

The show is on until Sunday September 13th 4PM, if you haven't been, don't forget to pass by, the art is great, truly worthwhile!

Exhibition in Chateauneuf II

Dewdrop by Brenda Moorehouse

A couple of days ago I showed you some work of the Swedish aquarellista's, that you can see "live" in Chateauneuf de Grasse from the 31st of August onwards. Also exhibiting beautiful as well as interesting aquarelles will be 3 members of the Manx/Australian/UK subgroup, Brenda Moorehouse,Cathie van der Stel and Sandra Seymour-Dale.

Brenda will show acrylics in the Chateauneuf exhibition, but I still had this great "dewdrop" of hers in my possession that I will treat you to! She is developing her style into a more clear, almost cartoonlike brushstroke, but her older, poetic aquerelles are also worthwhile...

Cathie van der Stel is not only a very talented but also a diligent aquarellista, and she has so much excellent work that it was difficult to choose what to show on the exhibition... The painting of the peonies is a classic and it shows her mastery of the medium as well as her patience! Cathie is able to work for a very (really) long time on one piece of work and still preserve the light! That combined with her great feel for composition and subjects, all of her paintings are more than worthwhile. In the exhibition she will show a couple of portraits, pebbles and more.

Cathie van der Stel

And last but not least Sandra - with yet another style and vision! She uses dark tones as well as light ones, uses the contrast, with a big brush and on quite a large scale... and in general her work is interesting and full of character...Sandra Seymour-Dale

If you are in the neighbourhood of Chateauneuf de Grasse the first two weeks of September, I can recommend you have a look at this quality work! And then I haven't shown you the paintings of the Dutch and Italian aquarellista's! I'll post about them shortly...

Exhibition in Chateauneuf

From 31 August until 13 September you can admire the beautiful work of a couple of aquarellista's in Chateauneuf de Grasse! There is a group exhibition there, and some of us participate with 2 or more paintings... As soon as I know more (which will be very soon) I'll publish the details - but for now it seemed like a good idea to give a sneak preview of what you can expect! I'll start with the Swedish delegation - Anna Karin Fast, Bibbi Isaksson and Birgitta Engvall. All three are original and creative - but that's where the resemblance ends, in their work they are very different. Bibbi's work is surrealistic and magical - the images look familiar, but the light, the combinations, the surroundings are dreamlike - and they will make you look - and look again!

Des temps immémoriaux - Bibbi Isaksson

Anna Karin looks for her themes in nature - she works realistic, in a poetic, lighthearted way and always gives the subject something extra - via her compositions, the way she uses her colours and the effects of the aquarelle paint

Pebbles - Anna Karin Fast

Birgitta has joined the aquarellista group not so long ago and she is still exploring the possibilities of the medium. With a very contagious enthusiasm! She researches the effects of the combination of aquarelle with other materials (salt, soap, crayon, masking fluid) and is not always looking for a beautiful picture! Good for her - but this one we all love:

Horse Nebula - Birgitta Engvall

During the exhibition in Chateauneuf, in "les Salles du Pontis et du Village" there is much more from these three - as well as from "the others" whom I will introduce to you in coming posts!

We're on Holiday!

Even the Aquarellista society has to go on holiday from time to time... Some of us are traveling far, some stay home and clean up their atelier! But last week, in between a fabulous lunch and goodbye champagne, we still did some painting...

Brenda Moorehouse, who by the way has recently developed a very interesting, cartoonlike style - created this "doodle" that has so many interesting bits!
Ann Edwards toyed with the deep sea theme

Lies Timmermans' "View through" from last week

and this is also from her hand! I have a feeling she likes bright colours

Brenda Moorehouse - doodles 2

And Doodles 3 from Brenda Moorehouse

I probably have said it before - this "doodling" is a GREAT way to discover what you like, what's there inside your brain and to get your inspiration back! And if you don't like it, just throw it away....

Next post about our upcoming show in Châteauneuf de Grasse!

Work in progress...

The Aquarellista's have been looking into "light". We have studied the work of Rogger Oncoy (see link on the right) and tried to copy some of his portraits. This led to interesting discoveries and the next step will be to use his expression of light in portraits of our own subjects...

More about that next time, and here are some interesting examples:
A particularly good Rogger Oncoy made by Marina Teding van Berkhout

And another "Oncoy" copy - of Cathie van der Stel. She is now deciding how to finish this, as a copy or use her own imgination and make it personal. If it works out we'll keep you posted...

Green Light by Cathie van der Stel

Sandra Seymour Dale added a bit of pigment to her Ochre Village: spot the differences! And decide for yourself which you like best...

Sandra also studied the light, with her own subject

Wet skies

Last week the Tuesday Aquarellista's painted skies, in wet-in-wet technique. And I took some really crappy pictures - with my phone... Which is a shame because the results were truly worthwhile and the pics don't do them justice. But I'll show them anyway - they give an impression of what you can achieve in terms of mystery when you drip bits of pigment or aquarelle paint on a very wet surface. It's been a worthwhile experiment for us, definitely worth repeating.

Below a very dutch landscape with a very dutch sky in a combination of wet and dry:

Marianne van Wijngaarden

We had an aquarellista from Devon visiting, Carol. She made several smaller aquarelles, we liked this seaview a lot!

A very nice cloud by Lies Timmermans- inspired by Adrie Hello
Two nebula-like skies by Cathie van der Stel


A heavy wet in wet storm! - by Brigitte Hole