So I'm excited because - finally! I get to paint with colors! After staring at reference images of Jerusalem - old city - with all of it's muted stone and some buttery late afternoon light shots - I went completely nuts with the base colors for this thing to begin with. The complete opposite of muted. I was in a real purpley-red and yellow kinda mood so this happened:

And then I thought - I need texture, serious texture. What can I add to this? And low and behold, I had a metric ton of paint covered paper towels from all the blotting and wiping I'd done and they seemed perfect.

So I started tearing them up and attaching pieces to the base using matte gel medium.

I thought the steps needed texture too but a different type. So I rummaged around in my collection of gels and mediums and decided to try out some molding paste. I futzed around with a palette knife and a brush for awhile. Never quite managed the effect I was going for but at certain point I just decided it was close enough. After all of that the piece looks like this:

HOT MESS RIGHT?!?!?!

Definitely one of those "What the F&$% have I done? How the heck do I save this mess?" kinda moments. More and different paint is most likely the answer to this question. However, I decided now was a good time to go do something else - like sleep - so the thing could dry and my subconscious could have some time to come up with a solution. Back tomorrow with more.