I love Golden’s light molding paste. I wipe it on, spread it on with a palette knife or used credit card, brush it on…no matter, the goal is texture. And I want a fine, subtle texture that allows layers of chunky color to show through on the finished artwork.

For this painting, called “Walk With Me” (18” x 18”), I started by spreading the molding paste in the lower half of the canvas. The image was inspired by the farm across the road so I knew I only wanted texture in the lower half. I let the paste dry overnight then started adding color mixed with matte medium over the entire canvas.

This time, I used a very limited palette of Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red Light, Cerulean Blue, Ivory Black and Titanium White.  I mixed a pale red/orange and covered the sky; I mixed a darker red/orange and scrubbed the color into the molding paste on the bottom half of the painting. That was it for the first day. I applied some gloss gel medium to the sky area to protect the orange and to create a textured surface for the next color. And I let this dry overnight.

Next day, I painted the sky using a shop towel and mixtures of white and blue with a little black. Then I wiped back the color to let mostly red/orange show through. Using the palette knife and a shop towel, I spread green and orange over the bottom half. The greens were mixes of black and yellow and white with a little blue here and there and the orange was yellow and red and black and sometimes white. By applying the green color over the molding paste with a palette knife, the green hit the high points of the molding paste letting some of the red/orange basecoat show through. And where I didn’t want too much texture, I simply wipe the paint with a shop towel.