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Recently a number of Dupont members attended an acrylic painting demonstration by well known artist Hashim Akib. Demonstration in Acrylics by Hashim Akib at St Helen’s Hall, Hangleton August 22nd 2015 Hashim Akib commenced the demonstration by showing us his preferred paints. He uses Daler Rowney System 3, heavy body colours from large tubes, which are reasonably priced and about a quarter of the cost of Golden acrylics. He piles his colours into a large, round palette with white paint in the central portion. His brushes are wide, flat ended decorator type brushes. He had a leaf-green prepared background on his canvas and was ready to start after showing us three photos, one of which we chose by a show of hands. It was an image of tourists walking down a Venetian street in bright sunlight. This would be his reference picture and he attached it to the left side of his canvas. The picture showed a large, historic building on the right with arched windows receding to further buildings with a tower in the background. Buildings on the left were undefined and cast in dark shadow. The figures occupied the centre foreground, reducing in size towards the farthest buildings and gave a sense of scale to the image. The sun cast deep shadows around them. Hashim Akib has a distinctive style, using large strokes with his flat brushes. He achieves lively, fresh paintings in bold, bright colours. Hashim had not used this Venetian photo as a reference before so he took a minute or two to absorb it, then chose his colours to block in the main building. The warm ochre colour was achieved by mixing several colours on his brush and blended together. These included white, burnt sienna, yellow ochre with violet and blue green to give it...

A few brave souls joined Judy Alexander in her back garden for an afternoon of painting. With all of the spring flowers in bloom, it was a chance to hone ones skills with plein aire painting. The cakes and tea were welcomed after  as the wind was brisk and cool.