3 Exercise 3, Part 5, Preparing a Textured Ground

1.  A4 size gessoed mountboard. Spread heavy gel medium with card to make raised surface with ridges and rough circular shapes. A little course sand sprinkled on sparingly in isolated areas. Flexible Pollyfilla used to make raised broken circle. The theme that appeared in my mind was 'Broken Time'.
Sprinkled on fine salt when semi-dry. Thin paint brushed on with wide brush, manipulated with finger, paint pushers and spoon handle to scrpe off some paint. At this stage it waas too busy. Built up depth with layer of thin paint. Removed some paint by sanding. The 'flexible' pollyfilla I had used to make the broken circle like shap was not amenable to this treatment. I should have used a general purpose version instead. The painting became very dark, so once it was dry I sanded some more . This seemed to work well, bringing out the brightness of the white gesso here and there underneath.



2. On the second painting (on 37x34cm cardboard) I dribbled pva from a container and let it run down the board in thick and thin wavy lines and glued on brown paper wrinkled up, in rough pointed almond shapes. I added a piece of magazine page in a very pale blue, two small blue diamong shaped paper, two pointed elliptical shaped leaves and  a couple of leaf shaped pieces of wallpaper. The pva looked much flatter once it dried, just as acrylic paint would.
Once it was all dry I dipped the board int orunny paint on flexible palettes. This didn't work as well as it had done in previous experiments on watercolour paper. Instead I  picked up the paint on large brushes and allwed it to drip down with the board tilted. During this process it started to remind me of some images of textiles I had been viewing on line, must have had an unconscious influence on me.
I wanted the almond shaped magazine paper as the focal point but it didn't as things elsewhere were far too busy, so calmed it down through a process of adding, removing opaque paint.
I also added a little stamping with thin strips of corrugated card. The leaves were very effective in adding interesting texture. I reinforced the lines shapes made by the pva with further dark paint.
Looking at it afterwards, I find a certain reminiscence with the luxuriant growth in the field hedge not far from my kitchen window.