Our chair announced some proposed future activities before introducing David Hyde to give his presentation on “Wildlife in Acrylics”.

Discussing techniques and materials, Mr Hyde described his early struggles with acrylics before he decided to use washes in the style of watercolour painting, rather than using the impasto technique.

He now uses soft body acrylics in conjunction with water and gloss medium.

To obtain his highly detailed results, he paints on very smooth, gesso-primed MDF boards.

Wildlife painting is his speciality and he had drawn his preliminary sketch of an owl on a prepared board.

He blocked in a green background, varying its tone to indicate the direction of the lighting, then painted in the plumage in varying tones of brown using short brush strokes to show its texture and direction.

After a brief drying period, he continued to develop the plumage with white paint, leaving glimpses of the dark underlayer to strengthen the textural effect.

The facial details of eyes and bill were added before a colour glaze was applied to the plumage to produce the finished realistic colour.

Shadow glazes gave a threedimensional effect and some refinements to the eyes and plumage patterns completed an impressive wildlife painting demonstration for his appreciative audience.

The following meeting was at St Luke’s Memorial Hall, Evesham Road, Headless Cross, on Wednesday, April 1, at 7.30pm, when Chris Christoforou spoke on “The Beauty in your Backyard”.