Portraits in aquarelle III

Beautiful granddaughter by Anna-Karin Fast

Five aquarellista's present last time we got together, and we produced as if we were ten...

Look at the results of only one afternoon!! I can actually report two parallel developments, one on the creation of realistic portraits, the initial objective of this "theme"... Anna Karin Fast started the aquarelle above, in her characteristic, light, direct and spontaneous style.

Ann Edwards' "Venus of Milo"

Ann Edwards concentrated on the lightfall and the representation of marble, as well as the typical features of the famous sculpture - we hope to see the finished product next week!

Bibbi Isaksson created a 'double portrait', from an old black and white picture of herself and her husband on holiday. She is still working on it, developing and researching until she finds the final shape. She experiments with photoshop:

I love the right-side eye! and the humor in the photoshop version...

Sandra Seymour-Dale and Cathie van der Stel experimented too, with portraits and colour, look at the fascinating results - to be continued for a long time!!

This is what 'the making of' looks like. Water, palettes, brushes, salt, kitchenpaper - and lots of tea!

Cathie van der Stel's latest version of her 'guy with a cold'

And another guy by Cathie

Note how natural he looks, despite the green, purple and blue! Fauvism in aquarelle portraits, it works! To be developed, as Cathie is definitely on the way of discovering something really worthwhile.

Sandra Seymour Dale's kaleidoscopic self portrait version 1

The idea was to arrange the separate pieces, put them on top of each other, to form one face. But that didn't make it stronger.

Sandra Seymour Dale's kaleidoscopic self portrait version 2

The project is not yet over, but arranging the pieces in the way shown above gives much more information on the person than a regular portrait. I think it is a great idea...

Next week: the finished results...more portraits! And then we'll go for something abstract again. On large sizes. And hopefully in great, sunny, warm, South French weather!

Portraits in aquarelle II

In our second session of the "portraits" project, we discussed the characteristics of light and shadow and creating skin colour.

After carefully writing down every colour I used to paint my hands, I discovered that "yellowish" combined with "pinkish" always give reasonable skin colour. You add more or less water to achieve lighter and darker colours and use payne's grey, other blueish tones or sepia for the shadow.

And as for shadow on a face in aquarelle: don't make it too light! Aquarelle paint becomes lighter when it dries, and the shadow part is 40% darker than the lightest colour. A good way to build up your portrait, is to start with the 'highlights', draw them with pencil if you like, or use masking fluid. Next, mix the lightest skincolour and paint the whole face with it, apart from the highlights of course.

When that's dried, add the shadow. And when that's dried, you add all the other colours for eyes, hair, lips, cheekbones, freckles etc...

Like Ann Edwards did with her portrait of Louise: 

This interesting information was used by the other participants, Renée, Cathie and Sandra on their work, of which I didn't take too many pictures! But here's the next stage of Sandra's fauvist puzzle-selfportrait.

Believe me, she looks much friendlier in real life!!

And Cathie had good fun with a fauvist experiment that turned out great if you ask me. Amazing how blue eyebrows, green skin and purple lips can look so acceptable! 

Although Cathie feels this guy has so much colours because of his very wet sneezy cold!

Portraits in Aquarelle

Our aquarellista group has embarked on a four-week "portrait" project... We started with a selfportrait.

The paintings you can admire below are a great start and an example of our different styles. Unfinished! -but I'll keep you posted on the progress...

Self portrait in kaleidoscopic version of Sandra SeymourDale

Cathie van der Stel worked on several portrait projects, (that I didn't take pictures of I'm sorry to say) but here's the beginning of her self portrait. I can recognise her from it!

Marie Dorveaux started on her self portrait with a lot of contrast! Look at the right eye - it reflects the sun in a beautiful way!!

Ann Edwards started not on a self portrait but on one of her granddaughter.

Aren't the eyes gorgeous and special!

Can't wait to see the finished paintings next week...

The beauty of folds...

A very beautiful and inspiring subject - and also a difficult one - is folded fabric. So last week we did a bit of research on satin and velvet scarves. It was great fun - and the first results are pretty promising!

Satin by Cathie van der Stel, Ann Edwards and Mireille Bonnaud (in that order)

and the Marina's who did give "velvet" a try:

Pink velvet shawl - to be finished - by Marina Teding van Berkhout

Silk scarf with black velvet by Marina Kulik

It was great fun - and we also did other stuff, which you can admire in the post below....

Views and Violets

We had a couple of projects to finish last week, before we started with the "folded fabric". Sandra Seymour-Dale worked on three paintings at the same time, one of those this stunning wave. She set it up with masking fluid, for the foam. One of the things you can hardly paint without a masking product. Using it you can work  impulsive and wet in wet while preserving the movement and spontaneous character of the white parts. As you can see Sandra did a fantastic job here! She also used salt - with moderation- if you enlarge the picture you can clearly see the effect in the bottom left hand corner.

She also worked on the Cinqueterre idea,  and used it as an inspiration for some architectural aquarelles...

Cathie van der Stel finished her version of Manarola - it has truly worked out into a stunning picture! Composition and colours and patience and antmosphere - all great!! 

And Marina Teding van Berkhout painted velvet (see post above) and violets! Note that she first painted the violets, then covered them with masking fluid and painted the background, wet in wet. After removing the masking fluid she balanced the total picture and this is the result

Cinqueterre II

Cathie, Marianne, Marie, Mireille and Sandra were the Aquarellista's present last week...

They worked in two "shifts" - made autonomous work and worked on the next stage of the manarola Cinqueterre project... The picture above gives a nice impression of our atelier Le Hangar!

Lovely aquarelle by Cathie van der Stel

Intriguing watercolour of an old Indian by Marie Dorveaux

and a very interesting version of the "four washes" exercise by Mireille Bonnaud. Note the UFO?

Poppy by Marianne van Wijngaarden

I am told that Sandra created a wonderful portrait - as a gift for a friend - but there is no picture I'm afraid... Maybe next week!

...Sandra must have been on a roll - she also made a fascinating start with her village ...

And last but not least this one! I suspect it is Cathie's...

Thanks to Cathie who organized, took the pictures and went back to switch off the lights of the atelier!

Tomorrow I'll join the group again and we'll start a project on fabrics like velvet and satin! Expect the results in later posts...

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...