new day dawning

I love the soft edges, smooth passages of color, and the texture of one color dragged over another when working with pastel. But, I no longer love cutting mats and framing under glass. So, the goal is to paint in a medium that can be framed without glazing (glass or plexi) but manipulated to look like my pastel work.

I'm trying to do this with acrylic and what a mess! I started with a cradled wood painting panel. Two coats of white gesso then an ochre gesso underpainting. By the end of the day I had only three small areas I was satisfied with. I painted ochre acrylic over all the bad areas (which was most of the painting) then wondered why I did that and scraped it all off with a razor blade - right now to the white gesso in some spots - resulting in some nice texture.

In all, I washed out my brushes, scraped my palette and began again four times. I found myself applying color with a brush and immediately dragging it with my gloved fingers. Finger-painting with acrylic? I finally got this painting to a point that pleases me. I hope this is a new day dawning and that I become more skilled in making acrylic do what I want it to do. 18 x 18 inches