I made a couple new short videos of a little mark-making in oil on this new panel by Artefex. This is their smoothest panel yet, a lead alkyd oil-primed extra-fine cotton canvas mounted to an aluminum panel. It’s such a nice surface to work on. A perfect combination of smoothness, tooth and absorbency for this reductive kind of painting. It’s honestly my new fave. This quick painting was done using oil and spatulas, paint shapers, sables and mops. This is generally how I start my paintings. Whether they’re figurative or abstract, I basically start the underpainting in this way and the initial marks inform what happens next. I like a surface to be smooth but not too smooth, with a little bit of absorbency and tooth. Plus, with their ACM panel substrate, it’s rigid, lightweight and long-lasting. I absolutely loved doing some quick marks on it, and I hope you enjoy seeing the videos.

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In the video below, I wanted to share some details of how these marks look on this panel because I love how the surface is smooth to paint on yet still has a really nice tooth and slight appearance of texture depending on the pressure of the stroke, tools used, and amount of paint used. This painting is thin and meant to be a first layer or underpainting for what will eventually have more layers built on top. For me, this early stage is the best stage to test out a new surface. I generally work in many thin translucent layers, with some of each layer underneath showing through in the next layers. I like to use a smooth surface in the beginning because of the nature of how I work, and also in order to allow for more variation in the outcome. This panel is the perfect thing for that, and overall a great surface for painting in oil.