A different way to begin a painting

Inherited Textiles Flowers Teacup and Vases, oil on canvas 27 x 35 cm

On Friday I collected work that hadn't been selected from one of those open exhibitions and tied that chore in with a studio visit to New English Art Club artist, Melissa Scott-Miller http://scottmillerart.com. Melissa had led a workshop earlier in the summer and from that brief encounter I knew that I wanted to visit her, luckily she agreed, she also offered to take me plein air painting and although it was wet, we managed to fit a bit of painting in to the day too.

Melissa begins her paintings by drawing in charcoal on her canvas.  I decided to try her approach as we stood in St Pancras station with our plein air easels.  I used charcoal and soft pastels to establish my composition and to pin down some of the confusing elements. We were there for a little over an hour before we were asked to move on by an official, so neither of us got very far, but drawing and watching Melissa draw was instructive!

Yesterday I set something up in the studio and began my canvas by drawing in charcoal and oil pastel/paint sticks.  Another thing that Melissa does that is totally different to the way I have worked before is that she doesn't use medium, she uses pure paint, so as I had at St Pancras, I did that again back in the studio. In fact, I used the same plastic plates I had bought when I realised I had forgotten my palette.  This process is much closer to the way I draw with soft pastel and I wonder if day two of this painting looks more like my drawings than my paintings?