Margaret Walty demonstrating her acrylic techniques, honed over 30 years of professional practice.

Margaret’s demonstration piece, showing how she uses glazes to build up rich, complex tones.

A small group of enthusiastic painters got together at the weekend for an SSBA-organised acrylics workshop at Queen Margaret University with award winning artist member Margaret Walty as our tutor.

Although a wet day, our spirits were certainly not dampened when we saw the beautiful autumnal specimens and personal artwork Margaret brought with her.

Most of the participants mainly paint in watercolour, and some had never used acrylics. A few only had very rusty memories of landscapes and palette knives!

We were all a little nervous but excited to push our knowledge and talents a little further with a new medium under the excellent tutoring of Margaret. She allowed us time to draw and gave two demonstrations with some one to one encouragement and guidance. The day zoomed by; time passes quickly when you’re having fun, and we all did!

New techniques were learned and Margaret was very generous sharing tips and knowledge. All of us went home with something we are keen to finish.

Acrylics may be the new medium of choice for some of the group after such an enlightening course, and some more acrylic works may likely appear at the next SSBA exhibition.

Thank you Margaret for a fantastic day!

Happy painters

Margaret’s palette came as a minor shock to the watercolourists in the group (nearly all of us!)