Once the canvas is stretched tight but not too tight I put on the first of acrylic primer. After the first coat is dry (a few hours) I put on a second coat of primer. Now I can assess how taut the canvas is. If the stretchers are bending or there is too much give in the canvas I will take apart and restapple until it has a nice tight bounce to it without torque the stretchers. The next step I do is to do a gesture drawing from the pencil thumbnail that I have created. I can use any color but mostly I choose black, blues or browns, occasionally greens or reds. Once the gesture drawing is dried I start to fill in the solid areas starting with the background spaces then filling in the inside.
Next post I will discuss how I work the negative space and why I chose to work on it first.
