Collage & Aquarelle II

First of all, I must excuse my pictures, I'm not sure if it is the camera or me, but anyway, they all came out blurry...  The quality of the underlying paintings is very good I assure you!

We continued our experiment with the pieces of newspaper, all in our own way: below you'll see 4 completely different points of view!

Bibbi Isaksson finished one - it started out as a very innocent picnic-picture and has turned into a VERY interesting magic realistic symbolic funny sad narrative! There are so many things happening in this picture... amazing! Click picture to enlarge. Note that Bibbi used every line, every dot, every colour in the torn picture to express her imagination...

Cathie van der Stel tore the torn picture in two and used the colours and the texture for a fantasy still life - with a strange transparency and a hidden cat!

Horst Timmermans used a picture of Cinqueterre in an original idea, that needs to be worked out still - it is a view from a window in the train - we see it in passing...

And Lies Timmermans finished a collage picture in a logical way - there's a nice picnic going on there, the painting & photo seem to comunicate...

There was also a sub-project going on - with light/dark/contrast as its most important feature:

Woman with a hat - in the sun.

By Ann Edwards

Village in the sun

By Horst Timmermans

Redhead in the sun

By Hélène van der Kroft

Collage & Aquarelle

Anna-Karin Fast was our transparency-hero last week... all the aquarellista's jumped on the new collage idea, yet Anna-Karin worked and finished this double transparent glass jar within a vase... A beautiful composition - and very transparent. I admire her stamina! And tomorrow she's most probably joining the rest of us in phase two of the "collage" project...

Ann Edwards working on her collage picture - outside in the sun

Almost finished... sorry for the crappy pic! magazine clipings don't go so well with flashlights...

I brought lots of torn strips of pictures out of magazines, to be finished in aquarelle, with fantasy - but in the colours as close as possible to the original...it turned out to be an interesting as well as inspiring exercise! Of course there were only parts of the pictures and to finish them, everybody had to imagine the rest of the picture. It worked for everyone - as you can see below (and above) 

 Creation number 1 by Bibbi Isaksson - despite the use of a printed picture in the middle it is 100% Bibbi-style!

 Creation number 2 by Bibbi Isaksson - not finished but already intriguing!

 Brenda Moorehouse's picture, she used her imagination (see open door)

Cathie van der Stel in a very pretty and promising composition, unfinished, I look forward to seeing where it is going!

 Fantasy bicycle by Marina Kulik - to be structurally changed - and then finished

VERY happy picture by Marina Teding van Berkhout - to be finished, we wonder if she's going to work with all these little squares!!

Picture: Marina working on the happy girl with balloons, Cathie in the background holding her work upside down so the wet aquarelle paint can drip in the right direction... Next time we are moving on with the collage idea, we have discussed it and will try for portraits, based on pictures of familymembers & friends. And we may also experiment with black and white...

Transparency continued

Because it is such an incredibly inspiring subject, we continued our developments on the theme "transparency"... Not all the work is finished and I am sure that I'll have more pictures for you next week - but here are some impressions. And as you can see every artist has their own interpretation... 

 Cathie van der Stel working with a sable brush from Da Vinci on an abstract

Cathie van der Stel's finished "glass bottles" - we all agreed that this is a GREAT aquarelle, of calm, poetic beauty

Beverly Ellsley finished last week's project by making the transparency clearer and tying up some loose ends! We like the contrast of glass versus tablecloth and do you notice the dish is actually floating! This aquarelle would make great illustration of a childrens' book - or may inspire a writer...

 Helene van der Kroft's glass bottles - a playful composition!

Helene is a very fast painter, she makes at least 4 aquarelles per session - last week she did a great one of a couple of birds, a bit out-of subject but I'll surely keep it for another post.

Horst Timmermans' glasses

Horst worked them out in a very straight-forward, simple way, by painting all different colours separately and as you can see that works really well!

A different approach, with an uncomplicated composition by Marianne van Wijngaarden

These bottles truly are Very Transparent, well done!

And we have a winner in Lies Timmermans... this is a folded organza scarf (but you recognized that I'm sure).

I am very enthousiastic about it, it looks SO real! Lies is going to work a bit more on it tomorrow, but as far as I am concerned - not too much!

What we use for all of the above, is stretched "grain torchon" paper, of the brand Arche, paints of Winsor&Newton and a variety of brushes, sable for the precise work (they hold lots of watery paint, are resilient and keep their points), petit gris (I suspect that translates into "squirrel") for the wet in wet work and a lot of other brushes - from ponyhair to synthetic.

Transparency

The palette of Anna-Karin Fast, working on her still life

We started our transparency project last week - the weather was great, sunny, not too hot and although none of us had done much painting during the summer months, it went great for everybody! I am proud of the results, they vary from very simple to complex. As you can see, most of us took 'glass' in one form or another as a means to express transparency in an aquarelle, but there were also some experiments with fabric...

Stones in a glass bowl - Anna Karin Fast

Three bottles by Bibbi Isaksson

'One bottle' by Marianne van Wijngaarden

Bottle and glass by Horst Timmermans

Bird behind curtain by Gisela Dijksterhuis

Ann Edwards painted this simple glass vase with flowers, based on an existing painting of Ronald Jesty "Sweet peas in a tumbler" and she added the "curtain" (using slightly lighter and bluer colours to suggest that) which makes the picture even more interesting!

There is more where this came from - I owe you the aquarelle of Cathie who is working on an excellent still life with coloured bottles and Sandra's very very expressive portrait of a lady, with transparency used in a symbolic way. We'll definitely go on with the research coming session... so watch this space for more!

Provence in Aquarelle III

The exhibition in Casablù is over- and we can look back on a success - for our favourite technique, for the aquarellistas and for our wallets too, as we sold lots! I took some pictures with my phone of what it looked like inside, for those of you who missed the show!

Coming Tuesday we'll resume our regular Aquarellista sessions - and we'll start with research into "transparency"... I'm sure the results will be worthwhile, and I'll show them -as always-  in my next post!

Provence in Aquarelle II

As mentioned in the previous post - since last Saturday the Aquarellistas are showing their impressions of the Provence in gallery Casablù in Valbonne... It is a fantastic experience, we have a lot of people visiting, they love it, appreciate what we are doing and we get a chance to tell them about the great qualities of aquarelle...

Yesterday, Sunday, we had our official opening, with champagne and fabulous nibbles by aquarellista/chef Helen Bate. I'm not quite sure how many people showed up, but it felt like there were at least hundred art-lovers!!

And what's more - we are selling! These aquarelles have found new happy homes (and more to follow I bet!!)

"Leaving Home" by Cathie van der Stel

"Old man" by Marina Teding van Berkhout

"Olives" by Helen Bate

"Olives" by Sandra Seymour-Dale

"St Paul" by Cathie van der Stel

Come and visit us and check out our aquarelles until Friday 18 September 2PM!

The address: Casablù in the Rue Eugene Giraud in the old centre of Valbonne.

One or two of us are always there - although we may close at lunchtime to grab a sandwich. We look forward to seeing you...

Exhibition: Provence in Aquarelle

From Saturday 11 to Friday 18 September, six aquarellista's show their impressions of beautiful Provence in Gallery Casablù in Valbonne. You are most welcome to visit us and have a look, we're open every day from 10 - 12 and from 14 - 17hrs and one or two of us are always there!

Casablù is in the old village of Valbonne, near the Place des Arcades and the famous toyshop in la Rue Eugène Giraud.

Exhibiting are Cathie van der Stel, Helen Bate, Marina Teding van Berkhout, Sandra Seymour-Dale and yours truly, Marina Kulik.

We're going to put up our work coming Friday and I'll be back to you with pictures of what it all looks like, so watch this space!!

Femmes du Monde

It's showtime!! Right now I'm in the Salon d'art contemporain in Valbonne, a big contemporary Art Fair, see also http://www.marinakulik.com/news/; Sunday that will be finished.

Next 6 aquarellista's will show their impressions of "Provence" in Gallery Casablù: count on some posts about that. And I have 6 paintings in Rumania - but I promised you some information about the group exhibition in Nice airport: "Women of the World".

It's on since 30 August, showing all kinds of paintings and sculptures of women from all over the world. I am showing the three portraits I painted for Pink Ribbon, as well as four other women's portraits, all in transparent aquarelle.

The vernissage will be on Friday 1 October and if you have a chance to go, don't hesitate - the drinks and nibbles are great, and so is the artwork!

Contemporary Art in Valbonne

From 2 to 5 September the annual "Salon d'Art Contemporain" takes place in one of the most lovely villages of the Côte d'Azur - Valbonne. At least one Aquarellista will participate: yours truly, Marina Kulik.

Maybe there are other aquarelle artists - I will definitely let you know.

I plan to show my DNA ribbons, combined with the multicolour roses, of which I finished another one today.

"Multicolour Rose 10" Aquarelle on handmade paper

Tomorrow I'm putting up work in the Airport for the "Femmes du Monde" (Women of the world) exhibition and I'll take some pictures to keep you up to date. That show will run until November, with a vernissage in October, so plenty of time still... but one thing for sure: the holidays are over!