I was awake for most of the night with the stomach problems that have plagued my life. An indirect result of the turmoil meant that I was regrettably unable to attend the artist's event at the Down to a Fine Art gallery in Stretton today, where their new Zeitgeist exhibition is showing a few of my paintings. It was to be the last art event of the year for me because I'm also unable to attend the Art Liberating Lives event on the 15th. The Zeitgeist exhibition runs throughout December.
Today I was applying imprimatura. The result was poor. I simply cannot get a smooth result on my canvas, and each of the four attempts so far has damaged the underdrawing. On panels it's easy, partly because I can press down very hard to get a very thin "dry" surface. I get good results on canvas boards and panels though. I think it's down to the delicacy of the underdrawings on the plastic surface. This same problem occurred on an early painting of mine that was painted on polystyrene "glass". I must change.
Rubbing damages the drawing so I must apply the drawing over the imprimatura (or use a more permanent underdrawing, that's difficult at the moment). I think the best immediate choice is to tone the canvas in diluted acrylic before transferring the drawing.
