Maldon Art Club (MAC)
Hashim Akib Acrylic Painting Demonstration - 30/9/14
A number of MAC members have seen Hashim’s demonstrations previously or attended his
workshops and 25 were very keen to see this latest event. As he is a highly talented and
popular artist his appearance also attracted a further 17 fee paying MAC guests. As a
measure of his popularity, Hashim said that he undertook about 150 demonstrations last
year, mostly to clubs like ours!
The demonstration started by Hashim saying that he remembered undertaking a demo to
MAC several years ago and that he travels quite widely in his work. His style is fairly unique
in that the majority of the painting is completed with a 3” flat brush and that finer detail is
added with smaller “flats” too.
A turquoise blue coloured ground was used by Hashim, which he said helped to prevent the
overwhelming feeling when staring at a blank white canvas, to complement some of the
overpainting and to stop unwanted white highlights showing through. A number of the
assembled club members seemed to identify with the terror of staring at a new blank canvas
and being reluctant to make the first “marks”, so painting a coloured ground offers a perfect
remedy.
Hashim’s large brush is full of different colours which he uses just wet enough to “move the
paint around”. It seems a cavalier style, especially when the brush colour gets a bit dirty and
he says don’t clean it just “overwhelm it with more colour”! He explained that he is delighted
to have moved away from his original “precision art training” and developed his
“impressionistic / expressionistic” style. As if to prove the point he made a number of
somewhat irreverent remarks about painters of boats (and other some subjects), being
obsessed with detail.
It seems something of a paradox that for a lot of amateur artists it is easier to produce
“precision” work than something impressionistic. Even a quite talented artist that attended
one of Hashim’s workshops found it difficult to make that first mark on a canvas with a large
brush and no outline drawing, something the writer can identify with! (Making the first mark
bit – not the talented artist bit!) He also felt that it is more difficult for impressionistic work to
be widely accepted.
The painting of people on steps in Venice progressed quickly and there are photos below
that chart its progress. Hashim’s advice was to be expressive when making marks and that
when working boldly, smaller marks and highlights are more potent. In his impressionistic
style he advises against putting feet in as they “anchor” people into the picture too much.
Given the time restriction the finished work was brilliant but that with a little more time he
stated that he would probably have added a couple of finishing touches. A number of
questions were put to Hashim, one of which was, does he varnish his acrylic work to which
he replied no – there is no need with acrylic, indeed with time they may discolour more than
non-varnished. The members and guests alike thoroughly enjoyed the evening and felt that
our art year has started with a bang.
See page 2 below for photos
Hashim Akib Acrylic demonstration
a blank canvas
tea break
happy audience
the first marks
up and running
an attentive audience
the end
a similar work capturing Venice