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As anyone who knows me will tell you, patience is definitely NOT one of my virtues! So when I found myself eager to get started on a painting but did not have paper in the size I needed I resorted to creating my own surface. I didn't want to compromise on the size I had in mind, so painting smaller with the paper I did have available was not an option. I had actually thought of making this image huge, but since this was a challenging subject already and made more difficult by the lack of my familiar sanded paper, I decided to not push the envelope too much and go with a size that was still comfortable. I had some 1/2" black gatorboard on hand, which I knew was thick enough to avoid buckling or warping when a wet underpainting was applied.

This is the gatorboard I used, size 28"x13"

 

I applied a layer of gesso on both sides using a cheap foam brush (adding it to the back of the board in addition to the front further ensures no buckling or warping).

 

You can see the texture of my brush strokes here. Two more layers were added to the front, letting each application dry and sanding it down to smooth out any ridges before applying the next layer.

 

I know it's hard to tell but this is what it looked like after 3 layers of gesso.

 

I then applied 3 layers of Golden acrylic ground for pastels, again using a foam brush and laying down the strokes in the general direction the water would eventually go. I let each layer dry before the next, sometimes using a hair dryer to speed it along (again, I am just not a patient person!) but did not sand it down because I needed the texture to hold the pastel pigments later.

 

Here the drawing is transferred and the underpainting is done. I used acrylic inks and watercolor for this step. You can also see the photo reference that had me so excited to get started even though I didn't have my regular materials on hand!

 

The first strokes of pastel are applied to the hair and face.

 

Here you can see very well the rough texture of the ground. While the watercolor in the background looks smooth, once you stroke the pastel on the board it becomes apparent just how much texture there is. Sometimes, I do like a lot of texture but didn't really want it for this piece, so I knew I would have to apply lots of pigment in order to cover it more.

 

A close-up of the foreground water with its initial layers of color. I later smoothed those out a bit by blending and added more highlights and darks as well.

 

The finished painting. Despite the challenges of unfamiliar ground (in the truest sense of the word!) I'm pretty happy with the result. It was much more difficult because the sanded paper I usually use (Wallis or UArt) holds many more layers of pastel than I was able to do here.

If you have experimented with substituting materials in a pinch, please share it with us in the comments below, thank you!