Paul Adams Art: The story of a painting.

About 20 years ago, whilst at the Artist and Illustrator Show at the Business Design Centre in Islington I made a rash decision to buy a large stretched canvas (70cm x 50cm) Don't ask me why. I didn't even paint in those days, I did small (15cm squared) highly detailed pen drawings on watercolour paper. But something happened that day to prompt me to buy a canvas.

When I got home (it isn't easy to carry a large canvas on a busy tube is it) I had a think about what I wanted to use this canvas for - something abstract maybe. But I never got round to actually starting anything and the canvas (still wrapped) was put in my parents loft until I needed it.

19 years later I remembered this canvas and, seeing as by that time I had done some small acrylic landscapes, decided to make the plunge and start a large Lakeland landscape in oils (never used them at that time - I'm always making rash decisions).

I did the underpainting in acrylic then oils on top. Looked great... for a while. Then I realised I wasn't happy with it - maybe it was the oils. Eventually I decided to get a tub of gesso and paint over it (there you go, another rash decision) and re-use the canvas for acrylics, a medium with which I've had some previous success.

Covering with gesso

Now, all you artists out there will be tutting and saying 'You can't gesso over oil paints. The oils will seep through giving a ghosted image of the painting underneath'. I soon discovered this myself. So, rather than wasting this canvas, I decided to give oils another chance and start a woodland scene in darker colours in case the old painting still came through.

I started with a blue acrylic underpainting then oil pastels to sketch out my landscape.