WIP Wednesday - anatomy of an experimental painting

Did my first oil painting since college in the Dan Dos Santos workshop this past weekend. (You can see a day-by-day report on the TLCWorkshops blog if you'd like to follow along with the intense fun).

Here's a step-by-step (at least when I remembered to take a process shot):

I went into the workshop with some initial thumbnail ideas based on a photoshoot of my niece.

After getting my thumbnails critiqued, I finished mocking-up a comp in photo shop -

-substituting some elements I shot at the workshop.

Spent the rest of the day finalizing a sketch and then transferred it onto gessoed illustration board.

Here's the cleaned up drawing on the board, spray fixed with workable fixative and ready for paint.

Dan helped me out by showing the start of a colorful underpainting.

Paint applied, sprayed with water, dabbed off with paper towels - until it became a  colored, textured surface to work on.

(after this, I forgot to break to photograph it in steps)-

The end of the first painting night - basic color down. Steep learning curve in using a different medium than my norm (watercolor).

And here's after another coat the second painting day. Interesting process. We'll see what it may or may not lead to?