Show and Tell August 2026

Many different mediums are used by various members of the Redbrick Artists,

inevitably we each have our favourites.

Some of us work exclusively in oils, some of us in acrylics and yet others in several

media depending on the subject.

Of course there are pros and cons particular to each medium - acrylics dry quickly, oils dry very slowly, charcoal and pastels need fixing spray to keep the paper and colours clean.

Today Christine shared how she is finding

working with oil paint after mainly working in acrylics for some time. She found that the main difference was the slow drying time which can be challenging particularly if you use a layering technique. This can be somewhat resolved by having several pieces on the go together. However there is an advantage to the slow drying in that it allows the paint to be blended and colours to be merged and worked into for a much longer time.

Christine found that creating space in the picture was facilitated by the slow blending

also the making of abstract marks came about readily when scratching through from

wet to dry.

We discussed perceived rules which exist around painting in oils such as the use of

cold wax, fat over lean, thick paint over thin, acrylic under oils and not the other way

round. Which led on to the belief that we can give ourselves permission to break the rules and use techniques such as collage, which Catherine already uses and, if we so choose, we can apply acrylic over oil paint as a “what if” to discover what effect it produces. After all we are aiming to create our own original personal artwork and not a museum piece.

We moved on to consider the merits of several rapidly and easily produced, mixed

media abstract pieces of mark making. These were from a large prepared sheet from which many smaller pieces were selected and cut out. The outcome was that these

can reveal and become a repository of personally preferred marks, shapes and

colours and a resource for future and perhaps larger series of work.

As usual once we are in full swing one thing leads to another and topics which arise are

preference of material - paper, board or canvas and selection of format - square being

the most popular choice.

We also considered joint plans to encourage future freedom and abstraction of work, especially how we can extend our expression, how far we can push materials and tools and share it as a group activity/workshop. We recalled that Sumi had suggested that using cardboard and the word “exuberance” might be a good starting point.

Something to think about and develop so please watch this space.

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