After last weeks demonstration this week members brought their own pictures in to work on.

Olga gave a short talk at the beginning about how to capture a quick image of the animal using simple shapes like triangles and circles and them demonstrated this method. 

​Members then worked on their own pictures whilst Olga came around giving advice. 

​Later she stopped the group for a short time to show how we could draw eyes.

A really interesting two sessions, led by Olga,where members learnt a lot about a subject not covered before. A wide range of subjects, covered superbly by members, shows the number of talented artist in the group.

Olga started by telling us how a picture can be painted using Acrylic and on occasions Acrylic Gel. She uses several different approaches e.g. sometimes gluing textured paper on the board before starting the painting.

​For this painting of the elephant, she has already drawn the shape out, added some textured areas and has applied an orange background colour, as she doesn't like having a white canvas.

​She enjoys being creative and has collected several pictures of elephants as reference material. 

​She starts by mixing Burnt Umber and French Ultramarine to make a dark colour, which she uses to outline shapes and block in dark areas.

​She then starts to build up more tones and shapes, ignoring detail at this stage. By doing this she starts to make the painting appear 3D. She thinks it is important to capture the character of the animal. Painting continues with the application of more mid tones of grey. She moves all over the canvas, not just working in one area; trying to analyse where  different tones are and checking the light source.

​She will finish the painting by adding the small details.