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

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 & Chateauneuf part II

We worked really hard and concentrated last week - inspired by Riviera's Jazz Radio... Only one aquarellista didn't work on our suject du jour "waterlilies and  Chateauneuf":

Marina Teding van Berkhout, who made these beautiful studies of a female nude...

In the Waterlily section Denise Holt did another version of last week's first attempt after she hadn't touched an aquarelle brush for ten years...

Improvement clearly visible - although I also really liked the first one...

Cathie van der Stel finished hers... Isn't it fantastic!!

And so did Anna Karin Fast - she added some small touches and all of a sudden there is perspective in the picture!

This is a little in-betweeny by Anna Karin - painted while her other painting was drying.

A good idea, and sometimes the start of great works of art.

...~o0()0o~...

Ann hadn't been in for some time and started with a simple view of a street, with lots of contrast... and didn't it come out fine! She's ready for a good old Chateauneuf painting  if you ask me...

A lovely, subtle and poetic view on Chateauneuf by Cathie van der Stel - who else...

And the sunny side of the street - in Chateauneuf -  by Sandra Seymour-Dale

Coming Friday we 'll start putting up the paintings for the Chateauneuf exhibition - It opens the 12th of December and of course I'll update you about it!

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

Other Projects

Apart from our weekly theme (see post below), a lot of other aquarellista-projects are going on - that are definitely worth showing! Here some examples... Flowers in progress by Marina Teding van Berkhout

Reflection by Cathie van der Stel

Pebbles by Anna Karin Fast

Fantasy landscape by Birgitta Engval

Vases and water

The week before last we started with a still life of flowers in a vase filled with water. This led to the need for more research on water and glass:

The "breaking" of the object (like a stem of a flower) by the water...

Bibbi Isaksson

The composition of water, glass and flowers I:

Titia Brandwijk

The reflections of light in the glass:

Beverly (now back in the USA for a couple of months) 

The composition of flower and glass II:

Sandra Seymour-Dale

The reflection of the background in the glass:

Bibbi Isaksson
 

Reflection of the light in the water:

Lies Timmermans

The importance of contrast and background:Karin de Bruine

And then there is some work in progress, from Ann amongst others - to be shown next post...

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

Exhibition Bibbi Isaksson II

For part I ... scroll down to the previous post please

The other part of Bibbi's exhibition in Valbonne were her aquarelles that we can loosely summarise as "flowers"... Don't get the wrong impression, we are not talking your average aquarelle sizes, these are huge! 1 Meter by 1 meter flowers, and every centimeter interesting!

Also some oldies, inspired by or entirely done in the Hangar were on display! You may recognise one or two here as well...

And then some like these, each and every one of them with a very mysterious light adding to their story!

And last - but definitely not least, one of the most recent projects - an abstracted image of a regatta with good strong winds...

Bibbi - congratulations on your great work, your fantasy, your talent!!