Expo Aquarellistas is up and running!

We have our lovely exhibition running in Valbonne -  until 14 April - and despite the crazy rainfall of yesterday, we have had over 75 visitors already. They all like it, they vote for their favourite painting and choose what they think is the photo - and we have sold!! 4 in total right now - one already left the Salle, the others are proudly showing their red dots...

Here are some more pictures of the work - and except for Monday 8 April (we're closed on Monday) you can come in and have a look for yourself every day!

  There's a lot to be admired!

 

 Ilse van den Heuvel

 Anna Karin Fast

Catherine Laborde

 Brenda Moorehouse

Bev

Xmas Exhibition in Chateauneuf part III

The exhibition in Chateauneuf is over - it was only there for a week. Our work - as well as that of the acrylics and oil artists was admired greatly by the mayor and other top dogs of Chateauneuf on their Christmas celebration. All visitors were positive and the membership of the Chateauneuf department of the International Women's club of the Riviera, who had their Christmas dinner between our paintings - was also very enthusiastic!

And now most of us are going to have their Xmas-holidays, in Sweden, Norway, England, Switzerland, Holland, Australia... And some are staying here and will go on painting! Me for example - I'll use the time off to start painting on large versions of some new ideas I've been working on... more about that in the next post... And here are some more pictures of the expo!

Provence village by Barbara Gentsch and  guy in a metro station by Örjan Rinnert

Bad pic of fabulous sculpture: Bird by Helen Bate

Three Nudes by Wim Teunissen, Betty Schep and Neville Moray...

and last but not least the real aquarellista thing:

Waterlilies by Cathie van der Stel and Denise Holt and

Chateauneuf in the snow by Marina Teding van Berkhout

Waterlily by Bibbi Isaksson, abstract by Birgitta Engvall

and Door in Chateauneuf by Sandra Seymour

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 III

Coming Monday the show opens - with a vernissage that starts 6 PM in the Salles Pontis, in the old center of Chateauneuf de Grasse... One more Aquarellista shows work in that expo, Marina Teding van Berkhout. This young artist paints in a soft and light, pleasant style and often chooses subjects like children, animals and flowers.

Lately Marina is experimenting with a more contrasting choice of colours, a different brushstroke and other techniques and subjects (horses, abstract) - a very interesting development that you'll definitely see more of. In this blog - or on her future website...
As for the exhibition - it opens its doors on Monday the 31st of August 10AM - and that same day we also have the vernissage - starting 6PM! After that it opens every day including weekends from 10 - 12.30 and from 2 - 5.30PM. It finishes on Sunday the 13th of September.

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 Théoule

Both Marina's participated in a big show in Théoule sur Mer. The theme was "in the footsteps of van Gogh" and in total 79 (!!) Dutch artists that live in France showed their work... We were the only aquarellista's - there was much acrylic and oils, as well as sculptures and other techniques. It was very well-visited (it's the season!) and we (the Marina Artists team) got lots of commissions out of it for portraits!

Cat show has started!

Grey Kitten - wet in wet then wet on dry - now sold

OK - after three days of working really really hard, putting heavy sculptures and aquarelles in place (and then removing them because it didn't look good, repositioning them, finishing the last details & going out shopping for champagne and other drinkees to serve to our guests) we had the super-succesful vernissage of Chat'atouille on Friday evening... We must have had at least 100 people - the whole village of Valbonne was there, the regional newspaper, our friends, and of course... the Aquarellista's!!

After the vernissage we went out for dinner with most of Valbonne village until late at night and this weekend Sculptor Sally Ducrow & I started our "permanence" in the gallery... We had a lot of interest, from all over the world - and also from a local girl that immediately took the chair that originally was reserved for Sally's marble "Chat qui fait sa toilette".

She may even have kittens some day soon - I'll keep you posted!
The address of the show:

Salle de Saint Esprit
Place de l'église
Valbonne Village
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Open Tuesday - Friday 2 - 6 PM
Weekends 10AM - 6PM
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Show closes Sunday 10 May 6PM

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