I know, I know, it’s already late November! James and Nathan, In wanting to bring over or retain as much as possible the flavor of my original drawing, I do in fact project my drawings onto the canvas. Of course, there are certain pieces in which I don’t have a study or drawing for, or I’m painting directly from life, and thus start immediately on the canvas. Toni, I don’t purposely build up any texture if I’m putting down a primer coat – That would seem a bit contrived to me. Generally I use pre-primed linen, but in the case of the Mother and Daughter painting, I did prime the canvas using a large long palette knife, and though I tried up to a point to make it relatively smooth, there was some amount of texture that I found acceptable and went with. As far as my medium of choice, I primarily use Galkyd by Gamblin, which I love.