Manarola Cinqueterre

Bibbi Isaksson's Manarola "collage"

In last week's aquarellista session we actually all worked on the same subject - a pretty Italian-looking village, with very brightly coloured houses, on a cliff. We didn't know where is was as we worked from a picture that came from a presentation... But we all had our suggestions of what it would be: I thought it might be Elba, Cathie suggested Portofino " Cinque terre maybe and Bibbi thought it might be Riomaggiore in Cinque terre... After our painting session the detective work on google started and it turned out that it was the lovely village of Manarola in Cinqueterre... Bibbi as well as Cathie found it... and it is as colorful as the picture... Anyway... Most of us didn't finish the project yet. That is because a painting like this (with perspective, many different colors, light, shadow and contrast) requires a lot of work!! This was the picture we used as inspiration:

And here are the first brushstrokes (bad pictures taken with my phone, sorry) They are actually quite good! Looking back I am happily surprised, also to see those different styles and impressions!

As a very experienced house - and village painter I would like to mention here that an aquarelle of a subject like this needs patience and perseverance, in other words: work!

It often starts quite boring and will get its rhythm and volume and beauty only after you have put in all those shadows and (suggestions of ) windows, roofs, plants and other details...

 So if you are not happy with your half-finished village, don't tear it up yet! Be patient, persist and finish it! It may become one of your nicest paintings...

Flowers & Faces

While some of us were having permanence in the "Poetic Portraits" exhibition in Casablù in Valbonne, the other aquarellista's had their regular Tuesday meeting in the Hangar! We just did what we felt like, no theme, and this is what we came up with... not bad eh?!

Flowers by Ann Edwards, note the fabulous combination of ochre tones and Payne's grey

Tulips by AnnaKarin Fast, aren't they a bunch of happy flowers! Very subtle composition too...

Very interesting work of Sandra SeymourDale. Everyone present had their own thoughts about this, varying from flowers, to footsteps. It is by the way inspired on microscopic potato cells (or so... help me out here Sandra! To me it is an origin, a cosmic soup from which a life form appears... Very explosive and fascinating!

And then there was Bibbi, she let the brush do the work and this is what happened! Fantasy, combined with recognizable shapes in the usual great Bibbi tones!

And Bibbi also started a new painting, it has already progressed much further than this but I didn't take a picture. Another face full of expression...guess what she is thinking... More about that in next post

Above three stages of "Cathies evil twin sister" as we called it. Very well done, and you can clearly see that "contrast" works. And that Cathie van der Stel deserves a career in fashion painting! I would be very interested to see more of these characters...

And then one more by Sandra Seymour Dale, another monumental and moving picture. The grey masking fluid is still there, much will change when she removes that and the strong white will appear! Exciting...

That's us, working in the Hangar:

Poetic Portraits exhibition

The Poetic Portraits exhibition of the Marina Artist Team in Casablù in the heart of Valbonne is still on and will last until Friday 12 February PM. Don't miss your chance to check out their great aquarelles!

Cathie van der Stel amidst her paintings

The show opened with a very well visited vernissage! We made a lot of new friends, did good business and received so many compliments! Rest assured we'll stay modest and realistic as aquarellista's go - but the fact that aquarelles can get these positive comments, even from non-connaisseurs, did us good!

So here's a proud picture of us with one of our youngest models (see the portrait below)...

Portrait of Ines by Marina Teding van Berkhout

EXHIBITION Marina Artist Team

PRESS RELEASE

Casablù, Modern Art gallery in Valbonne exhibits the poetic watercolours of the “Marina Artist Team”. From Saturday 6 - Friday 12 February

The Marina Artist Team: three artists, who work together on commissions for portraits of people, animals and houses or views. Working as a team makes them more efficient, using each others’ strong points, feedback and inspiration. This synergy increases the quality of their work while prices remain reasonable.

The Marina Artist Team is Marina Kulik, Marina Teding van Berkhout and Cathie van der Stel. All three are living and working close to Valbonne, with the same passion: painting in aquarelle watercolours. All three are members of the “Aquarellista!” movement and working as autonomous artists as well. The team started end 2007 with the two Marina’s (hence the name) who helped each other with their commissions. When they couldn’t handle more work they looked for another Marina – and in the end chose for the best and her name turned out to be Cathie…

The Marina Artist Team paints portraits of their clients’ nearest and dearest (people as well as pets), or (second) homes. Real estate firms often commission paintings of properties as a gift to their customers.

Aquarelle uses transparent paint that is as fluid as water. The paint is hard to control and because of the transparency, mistakes are hard to correct. Aquarelle paintings have to be ‘right the first time”. That’s why it is known as a “difficult” technique and not too often used for serious artwork
Before the definitive aquarelle is made, many sketches, studies and versions see the light.

An aquarelle watercolour is painted on mould made or handmade paper, the Marina Artist Team works primarily on 300 grams Torchon rough grain paper.

More images: http://www.marinartisteam.com/

Projects - finished, ongoing and new...

Last week was used by many of the aquarellista's to finish and work on paintings that were started the Tuesday before...

...the progress in Anna Karin Fast's snake eye... It came out very convincing - look at the effect of the highlight: the eye is much more real and the whole picture is 3-dimensional all of a sudden...

...remember the basic face that Bibbi Isaksson more or less "doodled" because she had half an hour left! It has now, in the second stage, become a female person -with a strong personality, a hat and an interesting hairdo...

Bibbi also took the still life with glass bottles one step further - and she may go on with it tomorrow!

Two new projects emerged - both from Denise Taillefer-Holt, and they are both promising:

An Iris (-like) flower, that tomorrow might turn into a very interesting colourful, realistic aquarelle.

And the most interesting and beautiful abstract picture of the session (to my opinion) with sooo much potential! Based on the eye in "half-sleep-mode" of a tiny frog. Denise herself didn't like it much by the way, although I wonder if she won't change her mind if she sees this picture...

Eyes

Last week a small group of aquarellista's sat together for a nice and relaxed bit of painting, without result obligation, just for the inspiration and to have a good time... Despite that, the results were actually quite interesting:

Not quite finished but cuteness all over the place! Seal by AnnaKarin Fast

Beautiful eye of a snake also by AnnaKarin.

We played with transparent paint on paper with reptile eyes as inspiration.

Bibbi Isaksson did her own 'things', in this case a portrait in her own indistinguishable style

And a version 2 of her glass still life. Version 3 to be expected!

In beautiful colours, the eye of a gecko by Cathie van der Stel. Typical for her, a lot of detail, subtly painted in with unparalelled patience !

Marianne van Wijngaarden worked out "how-to" paint a birch tree. The result can be obtained in several ways, one of those... a credit card!

Aquarellista Start up

Last Tuesday die-hards Bibbi, Cathie, Marianne, Sandra and me started the new aquarellista-year without any form of bang... We set up a still life out of bottles, and Bibbi, Cathie and Sandra used that as input for their very personal impressions:

Bibbi Isaksson's still life. Loosely based on the original - but primarily made with her personal colours, shapes and typical atmosphere...

Same in Cathie van der Stel's version! Same input, different outcome (to be developed further...) with the brightest blue and a very interesting background

Sandra Seymour-Dale's colourful impression - note the festive champagne fountains! (Effect of salt on the wet paint)

Marianne van Wijngaarden and myself digged a bit deeper in the loose, wet-in-wet style that she would like to master! As it is a technique that I do not use for any other thing than backgrounds, where accuracy and control are not so important, I enjoyed to work together with her. We took as an example an aquarelle from http://www.watercolor.fr/ (another aquarelle blog).

For the wetin-wet part: lavender fields and a mountain - wet the surface and mix different diluted! shades of blue, lift the paint where it should be even lighter and add more pigment for the darker parts. Then a small farm with windows and trees (wet on dry).

And lots of white to be left out!

It was a good, simple exercise that combined colour mixing, controlled painting on a wet surface, keeping the result simple and spontaneous. Worthwhile doing and repeating!

Last part of the Triptych

Before we start again with the Aquarellista group I'd like to use this space to tell about a long (literally!) aquarelle project: I finally (after over10 years) finished it! Up to last month it existed of two parts that (typical for a lot of my abstract work) in itself was divided in parts. It was one of the first "DNA" paintings... every ribbon is symbolic for a "life"...

Those "lives" of course are pure imagination, they come out of my fantasy - but for me they are real and happening, some happy, others sad, some short, long, shallow, deep, colourful, monochrome, dancing, moving, still... all influenced by external events (water, the background, each other...). The 3 paintings are 1.50 meter high, I worked on loose sheets 300 grams torchon of  38 x 50 cm . Working on different pages has many advantages, for example, it is easier to take distance, when you work on several parts at the same time. No problem to work on a tiny coffee table if necessary, the size is manageable. Don't worry about making mistakes, you can start over and keep the other sheets that you were happy with. You can make better versions and, very interestingly, be inspired by your own work!

Anyway - I have been thinking about that final part of the triptych for a long time and finally last december I started -and finished it. Of course I have changed and made other choices while painting, the difference is very visible I think and even that gives inspiration (I might go back to that simpler way of working sometime)? Life, growth, development, combining, selecting, that is what the DNA paintings are about too. The work of an artist should be like that: constant learning, researching and developing... And it is very possible that this triptych will develop into 2 or three others! Or that left and right stay together and middle gets new neighbours... I'll keep you posted!

A Calendar for the new year!!

And...it's back to painting again :) our first aquarellista gathering will (maybe) take place next Tuesday, but that doesn't mean we're resting... I know for a fact that at least 4 of us are working really hard at the moment! Sandra, Marina TvB, Cathie and myself are painting against the clock, doing the best we can in representative portraits in aquarelle of naked women. They will be published next month, in a "Nudie Art Calendar" that will be sold for charity - Pink Ribbon. I have no pictures of the others yet, but I can show you some parts of what I did. Not the whole thing obviously - to see that -  you'll have to purchase a calendar for 25€ and support Pink Ribbon!

My model has gone through a lot, operations, chemotherapy, radiation, loosing her hair - but she has recovered - and how! She is one of the bravest women I know and I wanted to make a happy picture.

First of course the studies, sketching to get to know the person, the light, discover the best pose..

then carefully finding out the colours...

and then I (thought I) had it...

With this as a result

But then I tried some other perspectives... and this is what it ended up like for the calendar:

Happiness and freedom in sketch

And in aquarelle...

For the full images I refer you to the calendar - it will be presented somewhere in March (I'll keep you posted). In coming posts I'll show other calendar-paintings from the aquarellista's (of course only partly)

A great 2010 for all Aquarellista's!!

From the sunny (and cold) South of France I wish all aquarellista's and other readers
A VERY GOOD, BEAUTIFUL & CREATIVE NEW YEAR!!

"Les petits formats" in Valbonne

As mentioned in the post below, I am working on a couple of new ideas, and some of the studies for that are in the "petits formats" show in Valbonne.

"Perles" - a serie of studies inspired by the designs I am making for a dutch jewelry maker

"Solitaire" - not sure what this is going to develop into, but for now it is quite symbolic - silhouettes of women alone, with the wide wide world in front of, next and behind them

"Roses" as you may know them from me - only smaller sizes...

It is an exhibition organized by the Artothèque: fifteen of "their" artists show small size work, paintings, prints, sculptures, drawings, collages, raku -and aquarelles- for very attractive prices. It is very well visited and I have already sold 3 aquarelles- but there are still a lot left and the Christmas sales haven't started...

If you have time, make sure you go there and have a look, because apart from my petites aquarelles, there are also the necklaces that I design for the dutch brand Merrl TM (cost price!) and of course work of the other artists of the artothèque, amongst them well known ones like Sally Ducrow, Noël Monmarson and Daï from Nice.

There has already been a lot of publicity, two articles in Nice Matin, announcements on Riviera Radio and lots of attention in the local magazines.

"Fingerprint"

Anyway - whether you are just interested in what local artists create, want to invest in art or buy unique Christmas presents for your loved ones - you shouldn't miss this!! Go have a look in Valbonne, the expo is in the Salle Saint Esprit, next to the church. I will be there and happy to meet you all on Wednesday and off and on on the other days.

Free entrance from 10AM until 6PM every day until 24 December. NB: The famous Valbonne Christmas market starts the 22nd...