Six more little paintings 8" x 8" X 2" deep, for the Mountain Heritage show this weekend. Mostly acrylic paint, some collage pieces, black and white charcoal, oil pastel. 

When I apply gesso to these wood cradle boards to start the paintings, I score the surface before it dries with the end of the brush handle, making sweeping lines and scribbley shapes. When the gesso has dried, I scrape on thin layers of neutral color, like ochre and raw umber. The scored lines show up darker because they have filled with pigment. I add other colors over that surface and the abstract, random lines and shapes that result are what I use to find the landscape features and figures.