casein virgin

Ghost #1; casein on paper; 15" x 11"

This is my first attempt at using casein paints - hence the "virgin" designation in this post's title.

Inspired by a post by James Gurney in his blog Gurney Journey, I chose a subject I love and am familiar with.  I bought the supplies James suggested in his post: ivory black and titanium white Richeson Casein from The Shiva Series and a 1/4 inch synthetic watercolor flat brush.  The 300lb watercolor paper was a scrap I had been using for testing color ( the back of this piece is a bit of a sampler.)  At first, it seemed like the white was unnecessary.  But at the end, it was really nice to come into the folds and add bits of backlighting here and there.  It was also fun to use the white to sign my name. 

Now that I've been introduced, I'm curious about colors and different supports (materials to paint upon.)   Before I buy any more paint, though, I'm going to learn all I can from the gray scale aspect.  One thing I felt I was missing in the painting above was a much larger brush to handle the background.