Drawing on wet gesso

This image is 11x15 on arches watercolor paper painted with transparent watercolor or whatever was on my palette at the time. The original painting had pure clean color and was a floral, my least favorite subject......the subject didn't appeal to me so brushed gesso over the entire painting and while gesso was still wet drew another subject by scrapping out the image of the church and figures....just as I do when using a pencil. The original color was exposed to create unusual color patterns. After this first application was dry I proceeded to put in light and dark shadows to enhance the subject. Enjoyed this experiment and have used this technique several times....sometime it works, sometime it doesn't...but always learning.

Painting once Scrubbed...

The horizontal landscape painting was scrubbed out then when dry a vertical drawing of an active cityscape was painted. The light values remaining from the laundry job had to be saved with dark mid values. The darker side of the palette was the main course with a few opaques used for the finish...scrubbed paintings tend to drink darks so it is important for the painting to be dry before adding the dark small pieces and calligraphy marks...