Last night Joe Hush gave us an inspiring demonstration on the use of acrylics when he painted a Scottish landscape for us. The painting was done on watercolour paper primed with gesso. Joe explained that this prevented the acrylic paint from soaking in and allowed him to make "adjustments" as he was going on or to remove paint to show a lighter background. Joe says "I tell my students that I have never made a mistake but I have made hundreds of 'adjustments'!". He showed us how he used reservoir paper in his palette to keep his paint soft and workable, and he also demonstrated how, rather than just mixing a colour to use, he kept the two colours adjacent to each other on the palette so that he could continue to blend the colours together and achieve small variations easily. Joe explained how his technique was to draw a pencil sketch from a photograph that he had taken at the scene. This allowed him to get a better feel for the tonal variation that he wanted to achieve in the painting. He demonstrated his use of a merely "damp" brush which allowed him to vary considerably the amount of paint he wished to apply to the painting.

Click here to see more photos of the demo.