I like experimenting with surfaces - each kind accepts paint in its own way and has a different feel when worked on.

Canvas, linen, and wood can all be primed with acrylic gesso or oil-based primer, rabbit skin glue or transparent gesso - there are many options. Wood is a firm surface to work on, it doesn’t give like canvas or linen fabric and can take more experimentation - drawing, scrubbing, and scraping.

I coat some of the wood panels with a transparent primer or wax medium that shows the wood grain and pencil marks beneath thinly applied paint. Some have a clay coated surface which absorbs the paint in a unique way that is not unlike the way watercolor is absorbed by paper.

Painting is a process of slowly discovering and deciding upon the composition as it moves and evolves with the interactions of colors; it’s about having a back-and-forth dialogue until life breathes into the piece.

 

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