With my Painting a Day project, I am experimenting not only with subject matter and design - but also media. This piece is painted on Ampersand Artist Panel. This is the same support I used for "On the Wire" and I really liked it. For this painting, though, I am struggling. As with many things, the thing I like about the panel - the ability to lift off paint - is also the thing I am finding frustrating.

When I do the background designs, I like to paint the background with thin paint, then lift off the swirling designs, then go back in and paint the patterns. With regular canvas, this poses no problem. The paint grabs the canvas texture and all is well. With the canvas panel, the surface is so slick that whne I try to go back in and paint the patterns, the paint lifts off the canvas, giving me a scrubby look. Yuck. So, on this painting, I'm going to try letting it dry a few days and then go back in with paint.



This is the painting in it's first stage, before going back in and lifting the swirl patterns.



This is the painting after lifting paint for the patterns - which it does quite nicely. And I was able to add paint back in to the lifted areas. But when I tried to add more color and variation to the background, the brush was lifting paint instead of laying it down. So now I'll wait to see what happens when it dries some.