Tate Britain's Watercolour exhibition I

Since 16 February and until 21 August, there's an exhibition of watercolours in the Tate Britain in London.

My first reaction was 'yippee!' followed by the decision to work extra hard for a while and save money to go there (and I still plan to do just that). It has loads of Turners and the whole history is shown, including very modern watercolours... Exciting!

Venice by William Turner

My second thought however was "why an exhibition on 'watercolours'???"

I was irritated! Why have an exhibition with a medium, a painting technique as driving force: nobody would organize an exhibition 'Acrylics' or 'Oils'...hgrrmpf... what do you think... might that be because watercolours aren't taken seriously as a stand-alone artform even in the country that has a watercolour tradition... Although it is the oldest existing painting technique! Although nothing is so beautiful, transparent, interesting, spontaneous! 

And then I realized that although there will probably never be serious exhibitions on 'Oil painting through the ages' or 'A century of painting in Acrylics' there is a very sympathetic reason for a watercolour-only exhibition: watercolours are a niche, an acquired taste, they are the 'poetry' of painting...

And we, the aquarellistas, the people who have chosen this technique as our raison d'être, as our most important means of expression of our art, we can be proud that we belong... to the poetry niche of all painting!

There is much to write about the subject. In the next post I'll react on an article about this Tate Watercolour expo in the Sunday Times. The article has got a lot of things right, but there's one header we can't let pass: "...don't ask [watercolours] to be groovy"  - mmmm - watch this space!

Watercolours can't be groovy?? Here's one - by Sandra Seymour Dale

Painting a house from a very bad picture

Because 'voting for Marina's portrait' is over (thank you for voting! Four votes short of the finale!! I'll definitely try again soon) anyway, I need a new post and have no time, so I'll bore you once more with another chapter on  'how to paint a house'.

I got a commission from a realtor, to paint a house in Antibes as present for his client. The only picture he had available was less than 10cm long and looked like this:

But - I was allowed artistic freedom, and that made it a very good commission! I took my favourite flowers, Irises, and painted them in the foreground:

The grass was straightforward, the front of the house hard to see but the trick of dark half shadows gave it a very sunny outlook! I skipped the closed parasol or other dark high thin thing and made up a palmtree. And of course a bright blue sky...

The yellow border by the way is masking fluid, which helps me keep inside the lines - for a neat effect.

And the finished product - lots of contrast, a tree, some extra flowers and a bit of reflection in the pool. 

I was happy painting it and I'm happy with the result!

Marina Kulik in the Saatchi Showdown

Here's a request for all of you aquarelle-artlovers out there: could you help me by voting on the self portrait in aquarelle (on handmade paper) that I put up in the “Showdown” on the great “Saatchi” website?

(interesting for all artists! Join it and use it for your art too!)

To be able to vote you go to http://www.saatchionline.com/marinakulik

Underneath the photo (of yours truly, holding a glass of champagne) there's a link "vote here"
Click it
Saatchi now wants you to become a member: I can recommend that, they don't bother you and they do organize a lot of interesting things for artists.
So, fill out the blanks in “Join us it’s free” in the right upper corner of the webpage.
(Remember your password!)
Saatchi will then send you a confirmation email.
Click the link they give you…and VOTE....

It is a fun experiment and I am in the top 10% right now and it would be such fun to get to the finals!
If I succeed I'll let you know: even more voting necessary!
Thank you very much in advance...and I'd do the same for you of course!

Marina Kulik

More about the Aquarelle Grand Prix

"Roses without thorns" is the theme of this Grand Prix, organized by Belgian Aquarellista Piet van Aken.

It is an international contest, you are allowed to participate with at most three aquarelles, one of those must have the theme, the other two are free.

The submitted work needs to be authentic and original and must not, in any way refer to work of other artists

Only pure aquarelle, painted on paper will be taken into account.

The work must be painted in 2011 and not exhibited before. (This means that the Hangar-aquarellistas can do a lot on our Tuesday-sessions...) Let's go for it!!

This one is not suitable for instance: made in 2008 and already exhibited...

 

The deadline for submission of registration forms August 31st 2011, so there's plenty of time still - but it would be good to start thinking about what you would like to do.

Judging and selection will take place on Saturday 17 September, and max 100 artworks will be selected

Exhibition is from 5 - 26 November in in the exhibition space of the NV Lucas Creativ, Kroonstraat 182, 3020 Veltem-Beisem in Belgium

The vernissage and announcement of winners will be on 5 November

There is an extensive downloadable "rules and regulations" form and a registration form -in Dutch and French- on http://www.pietvanaken.be/ . If you want one in English, contact me, I have a preliminary version. Note that the rules for contestants from abroad are slightly less strict. Don't hesitate to contact me - or Piet van Aken for extra info...

More later!!

Another no-go (from 2003)

Pre-announcement Belgian "Piet van Aken Prize" Aquarelle contest

All Aquarellistas are invited (via a letter to our webmaster) to participate in a Belgian Aquarelle Contest!

I have the rules in my posession but they are in Dutch, I'll translate and post them integrally as soon as I have time.

Here's the gist:
Work has to be authentic and original and only PURE aquarelle on paper will be fit for selection
Work must be created in 2011 and not shown in another exhibition
Max 100 "winning" aquarelles selected for big expo in Belgium
They are considered for:
The Public's Prize
First Prize 1000€
Second and Third Prize 500€ each
Several other prizes and recommendations (of the Flemish Community, Schmincke, Winsor&Newton,Arte etc)

Subscription costs 20€ (to cover costs of the organization)
Organizer Piet van Aken is an interesting aquarellista himself, for his work see the illustrations of this post and his website http://www.pietvanaken.be/

Mariette du Maine

Mariette is an old Dutch friend, and an excellent artist and  aquarellista! At the moment she is working on an illustrated book comparing and relating the Provence and 'het Gooi' (an especially beautiful area in Holland). The drawings are based on her 'carnets de voyage' which she makes while traveling in her favourite area, the Provence...

Here's our scoop - a sneak preview of three illustrations for the book (click to enlarge):

"Town hall squares" - and fountains (in Aix en Provence)

"Sheep" - Transhumance  (in Guillaume)

Potimarron - a happy word on this grey Friday (in Apt)

To see more work of Mariette du Maine go to her website www.everyoneweb.com/mariettedumaine (also in our link-list) and I'll keep you posted on the availability of the book...

A CREATIVE AND INSPIRED 2011 TO ALL OF YOU!

In both of these aquarelles (the planet on handmade, very rough paper and the abstract below, on smooth satin paper) I used salt. Salt gives a wonderful effect, in the same line as the aquarelle paint itself: you can never exactly know what the effect will be, but if you don't try to control it, it will not disappoint or frustrate you, but provide exciting results.  

Other 'salty' aquarelles:

Christmas card by Marina Teding van Berkhout

'Nebula' by Bibbi Isaksson

'See through' by Birgitta Engvall



'Chateauneuf' by Anna-Karin Fast

On Contrast

I am not sure what's behind it, experience or style or just getting older, but lately I came to realise that to me the standard improvement of an aquarelle (and, by the way, of a painting in general) always lies in the "contrast" - and mainly the contrast between light and dark. In other words, to improve - make the shadow darker. If you add a good one, your painting becomes more sunny, more interesting... It often works even better if you overdo it a bit... Of the portrait above I don't have the "before" picture, but you see what I mean - the shadows are very strong and as far as I remember I painted them much heavier than they were.

It works on almost everything:

An example of a house that looked very bland - until I added contrast practically on everything...

And one I recently finished - making the shadow slightly darker gives the whole image a sunnier look...

Yet sometimes things just don't end up as you would expect... This is an Xmas ball by Cathie van der Stel that she declared in the category "tear up and throw away". I didn't agree and claimed to be able to make it interesting with a bit of contrast... but it just got darker... o well, it was good fun to do it and you can't have it all!

Starting next week I'll introduce one of our aquarellistas and their work to you  each week - it is amazing that a group which works so peaceful together, has members whose work is so completely different. But they're all great! The reports on what we have actually achieved on the Tuesday will stay too, but they'll move to another blog, as a matter of fact, the blogspot of the atelier where we get together, the Hangar...

It's just been set up, no information on it yet, but if you are interested anyway - this is the link:

http://hangarart.blogspot.com/

A 60's portrait

In the beginning of 2010, aquarellista and gifted artist Bibbi Isaksson joined in on a project that we started, with the intention to make a personal impression in aquarelle, inspired on a photo of a loved one...  

Bibbi chose this photo

The first stage

Somehow she wasn't happy with it (although we all liked it a lot) and I guess all of you recognise this. A good thing to do if you aren't pleased with your unfinished aquarelle, or not sure where to go next, is to take scraps of aquarelle paper and paint on them what you think might be a good next step and put that on top of your painting. That's what Bibbi did - and she also happens to understand Photoshop and tried some things out with that:

Sunglasses added on the girl - and decision that that is not the solution...

That's so good about testing a next step this way. Same goes for backgrounds and bright colours and other 'risky' changes:if you put them on for real you can't get rid of them in our transparent medium aquarelle...

The next step - the couple gets more shape and colour and they are in love a bit more

But Bibbi was not satisfied with the way this was going and did the other thing that we can recommend: put your painting away and don't look at it for some time! Sometimes paintings grow beautiful in a couple of weeks or months without you doing anything to them, apart from not-looking. And sometimes after some time you just know what should be done...

So in April, Bibbi picked it up again and decided to add a more sixties athmosphere

And last month she finished this aquarelle! It has taken half a year and it has truly grown - into a very rich picture, full of memories, layers, songs and symbols.

Added to that - it has the outlook of a beautiful poster, with colours deep and strong.

The bottomline: if your aquarelle is "ok",  but you are not happy, don't give up! Put it away, discuss it with friends, use scraps of paper to see what certain colours would look like, use photoshop (if you can) to check creative next steps and often you will get to something you are indeed happy with...

Or at least you will have learned! And if it ends up being ruined for sure, don't worry be happy! Use it to light the fire, or tear it up and keep the nice parts for a next venture!

Thoughts on "Being an artist"

Being an artist - or what makes you an artist - that's something I have been thinking about for a long time... in fact, since I finished art school (a long time ago). And although I had diplomas in painting, graphics and monumental design - and made (a bit of) money as a portrait painter - I didn't call myself an artist. In retrospect I wonder why, because I answered my (current) requirements - but at that time I thought, I am so young, I need so much more experience, there are so many other artists who know more than me... what if they criticize me, what if they think I'm crap and make fun of me...

Funny because nobody hesitates to call themself an architect or a teacher or a chef... or do they?

Well - ok, it took some time but right now I'm over myself and don't have the problem anymore and I happily call myself an artist and painter and aquarellista! I have come up with a couple of thoughts on the subject, that you can have a look at for yourself. I know a lot of you out there don't dare to call yourselves artists - because of modesty and nagging doubts and insecurities - although I think you might just be one.

Note that these are my personal criteria - I am 100% open to input and corrections and discussion about them.

1.  My occupation is artist, I call myself an artist, write it on official forms etc
2.  I take responsibility for my work
3.  I have something to say that I want the world to hear and I show it through my work
4.  My work is constantly developing and there's thought behind it 
5.  There is nothing I 'd rather do and I feel my work is somehow important
6.  I am good in -and proud of- what I do (craftsmanship)
7.  I am original (or aim to be)
8.  I want to make a living out of my art
9.  I would love to show my work to as broad an audience as possible
10. I see my work as public domain (like a book or a play or a piece of music).

 All of the above sounds quite confident and I am - in a way. Yet at the same time I'm ever doubtful and wandering and wondering and struggling (like an artist should! )

Painting houses - some pointers

Last time we were only a small group and we had fun, working hard and smart at the same time. We didn't finish our projects though and decided to keep the pictures for a later post.

Which means that this week I'll use this space - to give a couple of pointers for painting houses (I just finished a commission for one)...

1:  If you have to paint a fence or a railing that is in front of something else, it works really well to leave the railing white and start with the background - paint it around the railing. Draw the lines with pencil and rub them out when the background is done & dry (you can also use masking fluid but it is lots of work and often a bit messy for straight lines).

Ok, so you have the white railing like the picture above, now decide the direction the light comes from in your picture, and leave a tiny line white where the light would fall on the rail, even if you don't really see that.

2: Below two balcony's done in this way... What you also see there is THE trick to make a window look sunny: just make the top parts of the doorposts dark - and there it is. Works like a dream! Try it!

Note that shadows are much darker (at least 40%) than the sunny parts - and it is not bad to overdo it a bit in your painting...

3. And here's another important one for if you want to paint a realistic-looking lawn in front of a darker background: start with the grass and paint the background around it - or leave the pointy grass shapes out when you paint the background.

If you don't do it like that, since aquarelle paint is transparent, the darker background will shine through - like on the left:

That's it for now... o, don't get me started, there 's so much more where that came from... but I'll keep it for other posts. If you are interested, below a small "making of" movie of the housepainting-commission I just finished, and that I used for the examples above...

Portraits in aquarelle I

As you may remember we have been working in a kind of collage style the past two weeks - we stuck a scrap of magazine on a piece of watercolour paper and finished it - with a great effect. Turns out that everybody one way or another wanted to do portraits - and that's what we basically painted last week - and it will stay our subject for the coming time...

Last week the aquarellista's finished some impressive work!

Sandra Seymour-Dale wasn't there the past couple of weeks and to make up for that she created a portrait collage for starters! In typical Sandra-style it looks in a critical way at cosmetic surgery

Sandra Seymour-Dale's next painting - to be finished but looking very interesting already!

 A wonderfully quiet girl -by Cathie van der Stel (aren't they lovely when they sleep!)

Ann Edwards picked "hair" as a project - and painted a face to go with that! She is going to concentrate on children's portraits the coming time

You wouldn't think so at first sight - but this is going to be a portrait too! Probably. And maybe not, maybe it is going to be a collage, but whatever it is going to be - the first part looks great! As you will probably have recognised, it is Bibbi Isaksson's work... 

Hélène van der Kroft has been working really hard on painting "hands and feet". After that she needed something else and let herself go in this brilliant flowery composition

And last but not least - this fan-tas-tic snowscape, by Marianne van Wijngaarden.

By the way, she is contemplating a misty meadow with cows to replace the snow - I'll keep you posted on the developments!