technique research

I was testing a new painting technique last night

and it got me so preoccupied that

I'm running on 60 minutes of sleep and 12 mugs of coffee (so far) today.

First, I'm showing you the end result:

Unfortunately, the photos are not perfect.

I tried to fix the colours in Photoshop, 

but I'm still not 100% happy with them.

Anyway

I've been using so many different materials lately, like colour pencils, graphite, ink with brushes or rapidographs, aquarelle, acrylic paint, and most of the time I was mixing them all in one drawing/painting.

I wanted to try to and do something a bit... heavier this time.

I don't know is it autumn, or maybe something not necessarily coming from outside me...

I just needed more... emotional saturation in what I do.

And I think I've found a good technique.

I like to use 500g cotton paper, but it's not perfect, because it usually has strong texture, and I like my paintings to look smooth, so I painted the paper with acrylic paint for background, and rubber wax over it. Then put it in the oven for 2 min, just to let the wax melt and distribute evenly across the surface, and fill all the little gaps.

Then, I put one very thin and watered down layer of white gouache paint, and when it dried up, I did it again. 

I worked on 3 sheets at once. By the time I finish the first layer, the first paper I did was already dry, so I could start over.

Only then I did sketches. 

That is a bit of a reverse process, but I wanted to let the material guide me.

Then I transferred the sketch onto the prepared surface.

It was easy to do with a pencil, lightly, because of the white pigment. It allows you to draw on it with soft graphite. I used B9 pencil.

As I drew, I made shallow cuts in the wax, and I like how it added the textured coutures to the painting.

All the rest was done with brushes and acrylic paints.

Here is the final painting:

and another one:

I would LOVE to know what you think of it!