Atelier Libre

Last week a couple of Aquarellista's met up in the Hangar to have a gorgeous lunch (I'm told), do a bit of work, finish projects and have a good time in the sun, with a nice cup of tea....

Of the starters only Helen Bate was present, she created several aquarelles, experimenting with the great aquarelle medium, here is one of them, a wet in wet landscape:

She also finished one of the starters' exercises, that begins with a simple drawing, which is filled up with colour, then washed out with water and a sponge so that the colours fade, and after it has dried, "volume" is suggested by painting on top of it, with highlights, shadow and patterns (for more info see our watercolour book)

The volume exercise by Helen Bate

The volume exercise by Horst Timmermans

Dried Rose by Sandra Seymour-Dale

Stage one of a flock of sheep by photographer du jour Cathie van der Stel: the nice green elements on their backs are of course masking fluid...and they will have four legs, or maybe five... 

Next week the finished project!

Spring Flowers

Dancing flowers by Helene van der Kroft

Last week I brought a bunch of irises from my garden... here's an impression of what the aquarellista's made out of that!

Wonderful still life with Irises and other wild flowers, composed by Anna-Karin Fast in her characteristic direct style

Very subtle Iris painted wet-in-wet by Marina Teding van Berkhout

Brenda Moorhouse, back from the Isle of Man created a biggee - and considers it as a work in progress. But now that I see it, I wonder if it is not just right as it is now...

Lovely and happy bunch of irises by Lies Timmermans: Mysterious background to be added next session!!

"Newvby" Horst gave the iris a try too - and everybody agreed that it looks promising - very promising!

Cathie van der Stel felt like painting from the top of het head - and painted several, amongst them these poppies...

...and these...

...and a couple of gorgeous pink roses, that by the way look as if they are drifting in the water...

>> Scroll down for more aquarellista posts

Carribbean Blues II

Two weeks ago my computer crashed and I didn't post - I still owe you the results of our second session on the "Carribbean Blues"

Peaceful Beach by Ann Edwards

Parasol and deckchairs by Betty Schep

Boat 1 by Cathie van der Stel

Boat 2 by Cathie van der Stel - and LOOK at that underwater part!!!
 Click on the picture to enlarge and appreciate the detail and wonderful colours...

Boat in typical Helene van der Kroft style: lovely summer colours!

Scroll down for an impression of the vernissage of the Abstract Exhibition on Nice Airport...

Nice Airport Vernissage

Last Saturday, the exhibition 'Les Abstraits' was officially opened! It was very well visited as you can see on the picture below!

The artists were introduced by the organisation and the attaché culturel de La Gaude. The nice looking guy on my left is Olivier Menu whose explosive art was printed  on the invitation:

The art was also visible on the monitors!

This exhibition is on until the 30st of July, in both business centers, of Terminal 1 and 2...

Carribbean blues

Inspired by Cathie's holiday, we started thinking about paintings with a Carribbean "feel"... It was great and sunny outside, it was Horst's birthday and we had homemade pear cake and champagne: what more could an aquarellista ask for!! Even without painting, it would have been a fabulous Tuesday afternoon, but we actually started some great paintings that look like they will catch that athmosphere just right:

Unfinished but already very Carribbean-looking! From Lies Timmermans

Work in progress, with still lots of masking fluid on mast and far-away sail, but look at that sky!!

Cathie van der Stel's two promising aquarelles...

Since 2 weeks ago, we have three enthousiastic newbees in the group: Mia, Horst and Helen. They are working very hard at the moment, to understand the difficulties of working with the transparent aquarelle paint, that doesn't allow you to make mistakes, that is so fluid that it flows and drips and stains, also when they do not want it.. But I am very confident that we can sho some results soon! Great things are already happening...

Horst's version of the "don't look at the shapes, just paint the colours"- exercise

NB: Scroll down to the next post for info about the "ABSTRAIT" show in Nice Airport!

Exhibition of Abstract work in Nice Aéroport

Until 30 July the business centres of Terminal 1 and 2 of the airport of Nice, shows abstract work "L'Abstrait". There are marble and other stone sculptures, original 3D objects made out of plexiglass and of course paintings and drawings, in all kinds of media. Acrylics, oils, fresco, laquer, gouache, ink and a couple of aquarelles... yep, they're mine.

 

I've been there all morning to put up my work (6 paintings in total) it was of course great fun to be there and meet the other artists! Catherine Monmarson was there, Michel Baudet, Hannelore Jüterbock, all great artists and very nice and creative and their work is fantastic! OK, not in watercolours, but hey! That's why you have me in there, as your aquarellista representative...

Anyway - If you are in the neighbourhood, go and have a look and if you are in the neighbourhood on May 8th around 6 PM, that's even better: you are most welcome to join us for the festive vernissage!

Tattoo hands (and more)

Like last time, the aquarellista's were going for a project where we were to be inspired by volcano's... and like last week we ended up doing something entirely different! But whatever the results were (euh, pretty good actually!) we could paint them outside, in the sun!  and that alone was inspiration enough!

Lies Timmermans painted an interesting fantasy landscape - clearly with a volcano in mind...

And the rest...

Horst, Mireille, Marianne and Ann painted their own hands - than added home-designed tattoos, for a beautiful, mysterious effect.

Ann Edwards' tattooed hand

Mireille Bonneaud's subtle, mysterious version

Marianne van Wijngaarden's very oriental looking hand - note the gorgeous background, created with salt!

And last but not least the hand of Horst Timmermans (new and promising aquarellista!)

My only remark is about the "finishing" of the hands: they will have to come from somewhere, an arm, or out of a sleeve.  That way the hand will look less like something found in an episode of CSI...

And then there were lots of other things going on! I'll keep some of that for next week's post. We had visitors again, this time two very talented youngsters, Samira and Maurice, who created several free, experimental aquarelles! Two of those are printed below:

...Maurice painted the circle of life...

and Samira first painted a great wet-in-wet background, and then added this lovely, funny cat!

Portraits in aquarelle V

Last week we got together again after the break, and the idea was to use vulcano eruptions as inspiration for a bit of abstract work... but somehow everybody present felt like working on portraits once more! So... that's just what we did - although Sandra created a very interesting multimaterial vulcano, using silkwrapping paper to give the image a bit more relief:

And then we had two guests, the niece and daughter of oil painter Véronique Vandenhoeck!

The two had no experience in painting, but clearly had talent!! Amazing work:

And then some more portraits!

Sandra Seymour-Dale has been working for weeks on her very interesting project where she painted (several copies of) parts of her face and then combinig those parts to something that resembled her! She ended up tearing the parts in even smaller parts, and created two interesting, fauvist portraits, of which the middle one actually looks like her! And apart from the result, this was also about the process, it was such fun to do, and to watch! And also a very good idea for other aquarellista's...

Mireille Bonnaud thoroughly studied the characteristics of the iris

Before she painted the gorgeous eyes of this feline!!

Bibbi Isaksson worked on two interesting, promising portraits that weren't finished: I'll show her end product in the next post, with hopefully... some inspired abstract work, related to volcano's...

The Second Hangar Watercolour Book

From time to time I give a workshop for aquarelle starters in our atelier Le Hangar.
To avoid having to print all that material every time, I combined it all into a book... The cover page is a painting by Sandra Seymour-Dale and the picture on the  back shows our Aquarellista! group...
The book (40 pages) contains exercises for 5 afternoons, as well as a lot of worthwhile hints and tips.

Below you can look inside a couple of pages by way of preview - give it a minute to load...
I look forward to your comments!

The 2nd Hangar Watercolour Book by Marina Kulik | BOOK INFO

Portraits in aquarelle IV

Last week - Last portrait session, not many aquarellistas, yet excellent results!
Below just a little show of what we did... Enjoy!

The not-yet-final multi portrait of Sandra Seymour-Dale. She is developing it further, cutting in parts, maybe tearing and then composing a new portrait from the pieces!! Very interesting project...

Sandra also painted a portrait of her friend Janet. Less experimental than the kaleidoscope one, but note the excellent upper left and right the beautiful effects of the use of salt in wet paint...

Ann Edwards finished her portrait of the Venus of Milo

Anna Karin Fast finished the portrait of her beautiful granddaughter.

Cathie van der Stel started another impressive "fauvist" portrait.

Portrait of a boy, Marina Teding-van Berkhout has a commission and practised the most difficult part, his hair: we could give input and help and as you can see she can completely trust her abilities!!