Bromley Art Society Bringing Artists Together since 1947

In spite of having to cope with traffic delays, Soraya quickly got to work and showed how one could use any lidded, flat container for an acrylic pallette, with kitchen paper and a layer of greaseproof paper, although she used a proper Staywet pallette. Her support was unprepared mount board. In no time she had scrubbed on some mixed grey mid-tones and began to build up a basic geometric skeleton of the market stall subject in dark tone, using a big brush, at some point washing on a free-flowing blue acrylic ink. Keeping up a commentary she worked into this with lighter tones to expose the figures. She had previously done a pastel painting of the same subject, and was working from a small copy of that.

Being acrylic, the paint dried quickly and enabled her to keep going. She was careful to keep rinsing the brush - possibly only using one or two (as I was at the back I couldn’t see that well). She regretted the lack of time to build up the many layered, textured foreground which she had planned, but made a few marks with dry pastel, and later oil pastel, concentrated in one area on the stall and nearby, to give impact. Judging by the finish of the giclee prints which she had on display, for sale, she might not have done much more to the demonstration piece.For my taste it was excellent and left something to the imagination of the viewer.

1 July 05 PW