The germ of a pictorial idea has been generating for the past few days, but one of the main obstacles to my getting started on it (apart from being too busy) has been my indecision about an appropriate medium and support. I’ve done a rough sketch, and have a pretty good idea of how I want to approach it, but up until now the possibilities I have considered didn’t seem likely to deliver the effect I wanted. I did settle on the idea of returning to oil pastels as an appropriate medium, but I hesitated over the support I ought to use.
Then this afternoon an idea came to me. A couple of weeks ago at the life-drawing class I go to we were asked to work on sheets of paper that had been prepared with a layer of gesso. I rather liked the experience, and think that this might be the answer to my problem, although I have only had that rather transitory acquaintance with it. It will probably be necessary to use a much higher quality paper than we used in the class. (I have some pretty good watercolour paper, which ought to serve well.) Some experimentation might be necessary first with different applications of the gesso, but it seems to be worth a try. I’m getting quite fired up!
On the other hand …. on the basis of last night’s class I’ve decided that I really do not like compressed charcoal. It is unbelievably messy. I knew a fellow artist in Bradford several years ago who did manage some impressive work with it, but I reckon I’ll give that one a miss.