Wednesday 28 December 2016

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

We decided to close 2016 painting the festive Poinsettia flowers, to send you all our best wishes for the celebrations of the season and for a Happy New Year!!!
Can you believe that we only started painting in watercolor 2 years ago? I feel so proud of the progress the group has made, and their continuous enthusiasm and happiness each time we meet!









My wish for the next year: I wish the group will have the chance to work with and get advice from a fine art trained tutor, as the ladies have reached a point where more advanced topics (e.g. composition, perspective) would help them grow as artists!!!

Sunday 6 November 2016

The first session for the 2016-2017 academic year!

Yes, this is our 3rd year, and the group gets bigger and bigger! I am sure we will have lots of fun with watercolor this year too! We are all grateful to the Community Center for the organization, hosting and materials, and especially to Mrs. Roula Sakellaropoulou who takes care of all the details (including the photos bellow)!






Monday 19 September 2016

It is time to start again!

Summer is gone now, and we are back to "school"! Yes, our watercolor painting workshop sessions are aligned to the academic year, and now it is time to start a new series of meetings.
Unfortunately, for this year, we are going to hold only the workshop for the advanced group. Although there is a lot of interest from new comers at the Community Center, my schedule doesn't allow me to undertake more than one group for year. It is also going to be a bit difficult task due to the big number of attendants (the two groups of the previous year will be merged), and due to the differences between their skills at the moment - I need to plan each session to be adaptable to various levels.
As usual, from time to time I will post photos and information from the sessions. One thing is for sure, we will have lots of fun again!!!

Friday 1 July 2016

Workshop Exhibit, June 21, 2016

We are really very glad for the progress of this years - both groups, advanced and beginners, enjoyed another series of the workshop and are so happy with their works!!!
The three Community Centers of the city of Patras organize each year a small fest, to close the various activities they do during the "academic year". And they do really lots of things for the senior citizens: theater, dances, yoga, gym, and painting.
So, here are some photos with the little exhibit of this year (and the three ladies of the 2nd KAPH, who worked hard all year to organize all these activities and events):




A big thank you from my side to all the wonderful ladies, who made all my Fridays wonderful and shared their time with me!!! Congratulations!!!

Saturday 27 February 2016

Advanced Group: Working on Perspective

The advanced group was working for the last 3 sessions on the difficult topic of perspective.
We had a more theoretical session, with a short introduction about linear perspective, the vanishing points, the perspective with one and two vanishing points, and some trials to have simple shapes (cubic) drawn with perspective.
For the next session I handled them some photos with one and two vanishing points (mostly buildings which could be seen as simple shapes), to choose what they would like to paint. The first exercise was to magnify the drawing, identify the vanishing points and work out the full drawing on tracing paper.
In the last session, after transferring the drawing to the watercolor paper, the fun actually begin: colors are what we love most!!!







 

Beginners' Group: Progress on the Roses painting

In our last session we looked a bit at the drawings, correcting a few things here and there, and then moved to the first wash of the background and working on the greens. We are going to finish them next week.





Beginners' Group - working large

After many sessions working mostly on 7x5 inches paper size, and a few times on 10x7 inches, this is the first session working on a relatively large size paper: 1/4 sheet (14x10 inches). I know from my own experience that it is a bit scary, thinking on how are you going to cover all that white with paint, and what if it fails, etc.
So, after doing 2-3 small studies of roses, trying to get around with color mixing, washes for leaves, how to work one area at the time, what to do with the background, and all that helpful staff, we went for the large size.
The task is to magnify and draw by hand a given line drawing, then work first on the background after actually deciding on the entire palette (e.g. what colors to use for the background if I want to make the rose pink/orange/red?), and then go to the details on the leaves and roses.
Here are some photos from the first part (drawing):



Friday 5 February 2016

Our cards for Twitter Art Exhibit 2016

I am sending a card every year to the Twitter Art Exhibit, which this year will take place in New York and the, Benefiting Foster Pride’s “Handmade” Program. While preparing my card I did ask the ladies in the advanced group if they would like to prepare a card too, and I will post them all together. They liked the idea very much, and a few days ago I mailed the cards. You can have a look at my card on my personal blog, and here are the cards of the group:

Mrs. Mado













 Mrs. Chrisa














Mrs. Loula














Mrs. Athina















Mrs. Evanggelia















Mrs. Ioanna















 Mrs. Marsha













I hope all of them sell and help the  Foster Pride’s “Handmade” Program!

Saturday 9 January 2016

Happy and Creative 2016!!!

Well, although the lessons are on track, and we regularly meet each Friday with the beginner group and each second Friday with the advanced group, I didn't manage to keep the blog updated with our news in the same rhythm I used to do in the past.
The groups are progressing well, and we have started yesterday a bit of theory on linear perspective with the advanced group, while with the beginner group we have finished the introductory part of color theory and we are moving towards a few details on composition aspects.

We wish you a Happy and Creative New Year!!!