a Zen Watercolour afternoon - with Cathie van der Stel

 Tana is back! Se made a great start on this table & chair. 

Let's hope she will come back next week to finish it.

Last session, yours truly was in Vigevano in Italy, on a painting trip with the Hangar! The Aquarellistas had Cathie to bring out the best in them - and as you can see above and below, she did!!

 After finishing her 'water' paintings, Liz did a fast & fabulous job on the subject of the day - garden chairs

 Marie Claire will finish hers next session as it took a long time to draw and the masking fluid didn’t dry fast enough...

 Natalie, Michelle's daughter started this interesting background and will add the stairs when she decides how to tackle it & what she wants the focal point to be. Good approach!

 Brigitte did more work on her beach scene, but it is not finished yet! She will add shadow to the fence posts & more greenery - but as far as I'm concerned she nailed it!! Absolutely love the picture...

 Michelle F was inspired by the poppies that 'pop' out everywhere at the moment. And she painted them in a bright and sunny way!!

Carol started a beautiful new painting which (to quote Cathie) "Will be as good as her plums".

 Although Glen is doing quite a good job with the weekly subject, she felt like doing a couple of exercises to back up the experience.  And that worked out fine!

NB - to check out all the exercises, have a look in the book order it at blurb

Liz's water paintings now finished. Had I already told you I think they are fab? 

(Yes I have -3 times now😝)  They look amazingly 'real time'!

Paintings in Progress

A relaxed Tuesday watercolour-afternoon - with many different works in progress! 

Always interesting to see what everyone comes up with

Cathie is working on the amazing texture of old leather suitcases. I love the smiling one (not yet finished). Sandra and I also found a hidden cartoon-beaver in this painting! Do you see it?

Michele has finished all starters exercises and is doing well with the advanced painting-group. Also, she is taking time to document the things she discovers! Such a good idea... It is now officially part of the actual program, thank you Michele!

 

Here's Michele's painting in progress... a typical 'wet-in-wet' landscape.

Romantic Roses by Tana - also a big compliment for the transparency of vase and water!

 Here's the next profile photo of our Facebook page - an 'inbetweeny' by Anna Karin. Like with the previous version, the background is so deep and far! And it is abstract. Well done, love it.

 Anna Karin is in clearly in natural abstraction mode! Here her 'Slot Canion' and below the predecessor of our Facebook profile picture... Interesting!

 

Brigitte worked on a second transparency exercise, also very seriously doing the 'solvège' for colours!

 

It was great to see Vanessa again. She worked hard and smart on olives and lavender - to be used as decoration of menu cards for a wedding. Bougainville and Oleander coming up, for the other tables...

 

Sylvie created the second version of her lion, this one (not yet finished) will be much more light and sensitive...

Roses & Perfume - it must be Mothers' day...

With Cathie hosting a watercolour session, there was extra choice in subjects! There were roses, and perfume bottles and on top of that Tana brought the suitcase, hat and gloves. All looking gorgeous and enough to keep everyone busy for weeks!  

Of course with a creative bunch of people like the Aquarellistas everyone painted their own interpretation of the subject

 Tana started with the roses - and it looks very promising!! More next week...

 ...same for Liz who started with the perfume bottles, a super composition, with challenging reflection, transparency and perspective! More later...

Carol and Anna Karin started with an almost abstract subject: 'Slot Canyons'. Narrow canyons, which are significantly deeper than wide They are very abstract and have fabulous colours, line formations and light when seen from below...

Apart from that both Anna-Karin and Carol finished other paintings:

Carol's plums - her approach of this simple subject makes it so poetic, fantastic!

To my (and her own I'm sure) happy surprise Anna Karin finished her Chinese Dragon Pillar - And it looks very very good! I will add it to our Aquarellista Facebook Page asap...

 Anna-Karin also finished her mysterious Nordic Forest - I love it. And that wasn't all:

...she also worked on the last details of the apple blossom... 

There was more going on, but there are no more pictures! They will come next week, so watch this space...

Jars!

 Patience is back after almost half a year - but she hasn't forgotten how-to and immediately created a fantastic jar with pasta in a combination of watercolours and pen

Last week we painted glass jars filled with herbs, grains and pastas. It worked out superwell as you can see above and below!

 

 Tana's bottles, not finished but they do smell great already

 This is going to be a still life with many jars and bottles. Not easy! Luckily Carol's painting it, I'm certain she'll nail it...

André's excellent still life - looking so pure and simple

Same for Celina, who added her personal touch, rhythm and light to these bottles with herbs and spices

And from our correspondent in Brittany, Michele C, this outstanding row of jars with fresh homemade confiture... Particular: she painted this on Monday, when she didn't know that we were going to paint jars en groupe!!

Michele F worked on a free subject and chose a difficult pair of prunes. She put a lovely border around it. Borders are her thing, Love it

And then these awesome milk jars by Cathie (who else?!) She experiments with textures, and it is working out as you can see from the rust as well as the wood!

Spring & more...

 

 Perfect apple blossom in the recognizable style of Anna-Karin

The weather is getting better everyday, spring is in the air and the sun is shining! You can see it from our watercolours - last Aquarellista session was mainly about blossom and inspiration from the colourful Holi festival (which celebrates spring, with an explosion of colours). Of course there were also projects to be finished - and exercises of the starters... See here what we created:

Blossom in the recognizable style of Carol... So much depth in it!!

It is also spring on the Place des Arcades in Valbonne - here's an aquarelle by Agnès our 'hobbysketcher' - she nailed the buzzing atmosphere!

Holi Fest

Holi Festival - participant with colour-covered face. Believable! Well done by André.

You can look forward to the one Elia started, I have promised her to leave it out of this post - it is very spontaneous and active. More next week hopefully

Indian Ladies celebrating Holi - and gossiping at the same time if you ask me. And having fun. I love this painting by Liz.

Exercises

 The last exercise the starters have to do is painting an eye. Starting with the iris and pupil. Of course a highlight. That's the same principle as the sphere and as you can see it poses no problems in all possible colours. The next step is two eyes. A bit more difficult, symmetry; distance - but both Michele and Brigitte did very well! And now they are almost ready for the free subjects. A bit of playing with masking fluid and then they really know everything there is to know - in theory of course, but the experience will come. It has gone very fast!

Michele's worksheet with irises, skincolour practise and the mask. The blue eyes looking a bit surprised still, but the next one makes more than up for that. I find it very very good:

 

Michele's eyes. So wonderfully subtle with the masking fluid fantasy around it!

Brigitte's eye exercise. The pair of eyes with skin colour are very good - the ones behind the mask may be a bit surprised... But the mask itself is very good!

Still Life 

Tana worked another round on her still life, added some contrast and created a 'whole' with a quite dramatic effect. Well painted - and I love the composition and the colours!

And last but not least, another Ink Bottle (1/3d full) by Carol. The photo doesn't do it justice, the real watercolour is truly impressive. I hope it will be in our Theoule expo!