Atanas Matsoureff

For those who addicted to Andrew Wyeth`s aesthetics I got a good news. A watercolor artist from Bulgaria Atanas Matsoureff came up very close to Wyeth ideas. His works combine very high drawing and painting skills with romanticism of daily seeing objects.

   Atanas Matsoureff. Wisdom. 43x48cm, 2011

"Watercolour is a painting technique which offers an infinite scope of possibilities for artistic expression, highly demanding on the part of the artist concentration combined with passion." - said Atanas.

Atanas Matsoureff. Dreams. 50x66cm, 2008

"The beauty of watercolour painting lies in the white of the paper, the lightness, the movement, the transparency, the vibrant colours. I paint from nature and I bow before the beauty and the forces of the Nature and the simple, ordinary things around us. I try to catch the spirit of each material and to touch the thing beyond reality" Atanas Matsoureff

Atanas Matsoureff. For The Winter. 47x64, 2011

1975 - Born in the town of Bansko, Bulgaria.
1994 - Graduated from the woodcarving class in his native town.
1996 - Moved to live in Sofia.
1998 - Discovered water colours as a means of expression.
 2004 - Member of the Union of Bulgarian Artists
(affiliated to the International Association of Art IAA, UNESCO).

Works of the artist are owned by private collections in Bulgaria,
Spain,Turkey,England,Greece,Holland,Belgium,Canada,Norway,
Hungary,Russia,Germany and USA.

http://matsoureff.bgcatalog.com

Stunning Video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVBTfew3e3M&feature=player_embedded

Konstantin Kuzema

Outstanting watercolorists from Saint-Petersburg Konstantin Kuzema is having an exhibition at the "Molbert Gallery" on 8 - 20th of November. With those who is far away from Russia I will try to share some of his works on my blog. The topic of this selection is "Eine Kleine Nachtmusic" - so the artist himself called his series.

K. Kuzema. Evening Mood. 56x76 cm, 2008

K. Kuzema. Capella`s Yards. 56x76, 2004

K. Kuzema. Isaak Cathedral at Night, 56x76, 2005

K. Kuzema. Kazan Cathedral. 56x76, 2009

K. Kuzema. Evening Light, 56x76, 2005

You can see the works in bigger size here http://kuzema.my1.ru/forum/15-554-1

Elena Bazanova - masterclass

Enjoy advance watercolor technique with Elena Bazanova  from Saint-Petersburg.

Elena Bazanova. Still life with a lemon. 11 min.

Important Watercolor Considerations!

Published by Carol Carter on Monday, October 17, 2011 at 6:10pm on FB

(excerpts from) Making Your Mark

Let me offer a few examples with which you may or may not agree. There are just my personal observations; you can consider them or ignore them as you like.

As a watercolor painter, I am painfully aware of the prejudice against the medium. It has mostly enjoyed a second class status, labeled as a sketching medium for amatueurs and dabblers. Do I think this is fair of justified? No, but we watercolorist has a lot to do with the current reputation of the medium. I wil confess that I am self-taught in watercolor, and that I looked at many how-to books while I was learning to handle the medium. In the many years since, I can't begin to tell you how any hundreds of watercolor paintings I have seen that look just like a page from one of these books. These watercolors are often impeccably painted, but disturbingly repetitive, not only showcasiing similar rote techniques, but fixing on certain ubiquitous subjects as well.

Even the watercolor abstractionists don't fare much better, appearing as if the artists all attended the same few workshops. My comments will probabaly not win me any friends in the watercolor community, and I regret that, but there should be more contemporary watercolors hanging in our hypothetical museum along with the Homers, Sargents, Prendergasts, Marins, and Burchfields.

Likewise, the virtuosity of many contemporary plein air painters is astonishing, yet I often have trouble telling them apart. Why all this devotion to a particular form? Can this be healthy?

Although loved by all today, the first generation Impressionists were innovators; their paintings were radical and thoroughly modern, shocking and not immediately accepted. Their emphasis on high chromatic contrast and aggressive brushwork were departures from accepted practice. The subjects chosen by the Impressioniss were images of the everyday life of their time; contemporary streets, trains, carriages, parks, fields, and farm workers. I wonder how many contemporary plein air painters we will be able to hang alonside the Monets, Pissarros and Van Goghs in our museums.

Lest anyone thing that I hold myself above all thes criticisms, please know that I torture myself over this stuff! I constantly live in the land of self-doubt and questioning. I recognize these shortcomings and I am always searching for soemthing more. We all have our limitations, but can't we also have higher aspirations?

For us to ultimately succeed as artists we need to cultivate our individuality. When we camp in another artist's territory we don't do them any favors, but perhaps even worse, we don't do ourselves (nor the "cause of art," as described by Kandisky) any favors either.

We should take a clue from nature and pattern ourselves after the dogs who recognize each other's marked territory. If you are also going to try to claim a territory for your own, you had better be a bigger dog than those who preceeded you.

Matthew Daub Professor of Fine ARt at Kutztown Univeristy of Pennsylvannia

New Video Annonce

I`ve just finnished editting the bonus video for my new DVD Portrait project. It is a version of one of 3 paintings selected for the IV International Watercolor Biennale "ART BRIDGE" in St.Petersburg in December this year.

 K. Sterkhov. Mother (a part of the painting). 50x70

Find out how to meditate and get your self-realization.

Watercolor of the Day

I saw it today in FB - stunning!

Morgan Gyger. Island Impression.

Piet Lap

Piet Lap is a famous Dutch watercolor artist. Here I am sharing some of his outstanding works.

Piet Lap. Dutch Landscape.

"I am, by nature, an inquisitive person. That is why I like travelling. I am not sure whether this urge comes from the desire to go and paint somewhere,or, the other way round, painting is just an alibi to travel. Let us say the truth is somewhere in between. Anyhow, I prefer to travel light and the simple watercolour-equipment goes best with my restlessness.                                                 
I love making watercolours. I am a watercolourist for almost 40 years: a grown-up boy who is still messing around with a paintbox and who practises a profession of which uselessness is the essence. Remarkable, that one can still be so fascinated by the colours of a Moroccan soukh, the tragic carcasses of shipwrecks in a bay in Brittany or the theatrical changing light of the Highlands."

 Piet Lap. Scotish Landscape.

"Of course, this is all a form of Romanticism. I love remote places. Nowhere else as on the Scottish Western Isles I experience stronger that being exposed to the magic of these islands a man can be marked for life, leaving him entangled in inexplicable enthousiasms for lazy days, bright skies and the noise of an encircling sea.                                                                                 I never felt figuration a burden to shake off, as was the case, for decades, in mainstream-art. On the contrary, I look upon working after observation as a source of elementary painters’pleasure: you see better and more."

Piet Lap. Scotish Landscape.

"Starting a new watercolour is like starting all over again, from the beginning, tabula rasa. Your paper is frightening white, you get nervous and in your brain a vague scenario builds up: what to do, in which order, which pace. Failure always lies in wait and you know that there is only little chance of making something really good. What keeps us going on is this feeling that hopefully never leaves us: the best work has still to be made, wait and see, tomorrow, or the day after…"

Text catalogue 7th Internation Watercolour Festival -  Piet Lap

http://www.pietlap.com/

Nicholas Simmons - short demo

Finally I saw how he did it! Amaizing! So inspiring!

Nicholas Simmons demo.

Top Art Courses 2012

Thomas W. Schaller "Toscana Americana"
Cortona, Italy May 5-12, 2012

Thomas W. Schaller

Keiko Tanabe & Eugen Chisnicean "Toscana Americana"
Cortona, Italy June 23-30, 2012
Keiko Tanabe

Eugene Cisnecean

http://www.toscanaamericana.com/keikoeugenwatercolor.html

Fabio Cembranelli
Girona, Spain, 8-14 June, 2012

Fabio Cembranelli

http://www.fcembranelli.blogspot.com

From Japan

Ryoyu Fukui. Wave Of  Light.

Kazuo Kasai.

Ilya Ibryaev

A new name for me. I found him at another Russian watercolor blog. Quite good one!

Ilya Ibryaev.

Watercolor of the Day

I found this watercolor work on a Russian watercolor blog. It is painted by leisure  painter from Moscow. She is studying Medicine, the person on the painting is her brother musician. I find the painting extremely expressive.

Anna Ivanova. My Little Brother.

New Cisnecean

One of the latest paintings by Eugene Cisnecean.

Eugen Cisnecean.

http://eugenchisnicean.com/

Vote for me!

Dear friends! If you appreciate my Art you can vote for me at the independent Contemporary Watercolorists Rating at the site of K.Kuzema.

I believe it is not quite easy if you don`t speak Russian, but you can enjoy at least the wonderful list of contemporary artists working in watercolor medium. I am sure you will discover many new ones. The main problem would be the registration, but you can just enter as a guest.

http://kuzema.my1.ru/forum/16-547-1