Inspired by Marie-Françoise Ingels

From time to time we let ourselves be inspired by another painting, or by the style of a certain artist - and last week we used an exercise from L'Art de l'Aquarelle nr 35, by Marie-Françoise Ingels. The exercise was based on sticking tape, cut in geometric shapes, on white paper, then a light wash, then more sticking, then another wash and then add some accents, all the time with only the composition in mind. 

 This was an example with the 4 stages and still without the 'accents' because everybody understood & wanted to get to work...

The double page, with 'Rêve Bleu' and 'Ville' in the top picture of this post was favourite, and that's what almost everyone used. As example, or as colour scheme. It was a super afternoon, all were throwing paint on paper, working very wet, free and completely unafraid to experiment! Here are the results of a great session:

Celina loved the exercise that she will continue next time. She worked on her birds at the same time, a good idea: while you work on one, the other painting can dry, no waiting and always something to think about.

 

What a happy surprise when Sylvie walked in suddenly! It was fantastic to see her again and she spent a lot of time updating all her friends but still got around to doing a small watercolour! We hope to see more of her the coming weeks...

 

  Linda was mainly concentrating on the new portrait she's working on, but despite not spending a lot of time on this exercise, it looks great

I was very enthusiastic about the watercolours of both 'Micheles'!  This is Michelle F's version, isn't it amazing!! The colours are so strong... Love it!

 And here's Michele C's painting, not finished (quite a large size) but absolutely convincing already!

 Glenda participated for the first time and created this watercolour. Never done it before, and then such a good use of the transparency, I hope to see more!

 Sheila gave an extra dimension to this painting with her reflections in the sky. The downward part is not yet painted, that will happen next time - but I love it already!

Isabelle worked hard and experimented with masking fluid and that's why this amazing interpretation looks like a snow landscape!

Elia combined one of her own pictures with  Marie-Françoise's colour scheme and look at that result! Really lovely and mysterious!

 Agnès took the whole idea a step further and used the tape & geometric/graphic contrast to create a kind of 'window' effect. And that worked out!! Awesome!

 And how about Sandra, who, next to watercolours and pen, used sand and newspaper to create this abstract landscape...

And Carol, who used Marie-Françoise's aquarelle as a starting point to paint her own English house. And ended up with a very personal touch, completely out of comfort zone!

There was some other work done, that I will keep for next time, but this little horse by Agnès, painted in the 5 leftover minutes, was so fabulous -and similar in style, that it deserves a place right hear: Last, but by no means Least!!! Well Done...

Marie-Françoise is going to read this blogpost and I hope she is as proud of your work as I am and also I hope that one day she can visit and demonstrate her style of painting to us! More about that later! 

 If you are curious about her other work, you can visit her website: https://lesaquarellesdemariefrancoise.weebly.com/