"Mango and Strawberries" Oil on 6x8 board

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I have been away from posting to my blog the last couple of weeks.  The nice weather has been a distraction and yard work is added to my "to do" list now.  Plus, my part time day job seems to get my head totally out of my "painting frame of mind".  It takes a long time to get back to it. But, I'm sure every artist has some of these same issues... I just need to plan my time better.
  But, I have had other nice distractions pulling at me too.  Recently,  I have become re-infatuated with my pastels and I wanted to experiment with them more.  I ordered some colored "sanded" pastel paper, which I never tried before.   I had once bought a jar of "Golden" Acrylic ground for pastels.  It's kind of the same thing.  You can brush it on paper or panel, and it gives a fine gritty surface to hold the pastel.   I've always loved pastel paintings, and every so often I like to give it a try.
  And...  I tried "priming" some hardboard panels for oil painting in a different way.   I put an extra coat of gesso on, a very diluted coat.. hoping it would blur out the brush lines of the previous (dried)layer, and it did.  It dried nice and smooth.  Then I tried a watery coat of acrylic paint, in a gray tone, over the gesso.  Another thing I tried was putting a coat of acrylic varnish on the panel, which is what the painting above is on.  It made a nice surface to paint on.  One nice thing was, you can wipe the whole thing off clean if you mess up, and start over fresh.   That surface was a bit slick for me, though.  I think the dry matte surface of the acrylic painted panels will be more comfortable for me to paint on.  I'm going to try that tomorrow :)