Girl combing hair

Painting with mixed media. Not yet finished (I think). But this is to show progression. I prepared a sheet of standard 12mm MDF (Masonite in English?) 50x60cm, which I prepared by adding 2 layers of gesso on both sides.Then I spooned a layer of the kind of mortar you use for bathroom tiling on top. It gives a good textured surface. See picture, with a light charcoal drawing on top.

I added a few layers of acrylic, to see how it worked out, but somehow the texture got lost. So I put it under a shower to wash off the paint. Now the effect was more transparent with a tactile texture.

After that I added a few other layers of colour, rather thansparent. The mortar made the underground stay moist, so the acrylic worked like watercolour: the colours would blend into each other. In the end I found the painting to be too soft, almost fresco-like.

Again not what I wanted, so I added a new layer of tile-mortar.
Sometimes you have to destroy what you make, in order to find the road back to what you wanted to make in the first place.

After this I added new layers of transparent acrylic.I also added a few lines to find the form back again.
The form was kept as simple as possible, to give the texture and how the paint reacts with the underground maximum effect.

I also tried to play with "lost and found". A painters method which tries to make a painting interesting by deliberately NOT defining the form. The viewer will use his imagination by defining the form even where it's not indicated. If you are interested in that process, check the blog of Terry Miura, an excellent Californian painter.

So the top painting is the result as we are now.
I am not 100% satisfied, but I have to be careful in order not to lose those parts that I do like.