The seed — before anything gets primed
Every piece starts as a fragment. A phrase, a photograph, a colour combination glimpsed in the street. The fragment sits in a notes file for days or weeks. Most fragments never become paintings. The ones that survive have kept nagging.
By the time the canvas gets primed, the fragment has usually accumulated three or four sketches and a mood-board of five or six references. Never more than that — a bigger mood-board dilutes the vision.
Priming and underpainting
Canvas comes pre-primed from the manufacturer, but a second layer of gesso creates a smoother surface and richer colour. The underpainting — usually a warm rust or cool grey wash — sets the temperature of the whole piece and prevents the classic white-background bleed where colours look weaker than they will in the final.
For denim and leather work, the "priming" is different — a fabric-specific primer keeps acrylic bonded to fibres that would otherwise reject it.
Blocking — the fast phase
The first two-to-four hours of active painting cover about 70% of the surface — big shapes, primary colour zones, no detail yet. This is the phase where you decide if the piece works. If the blocked-in composition feels wrong at this stage, it is faster to start over than to correct.
A piece that survives the blocking phase almost always makes it to completion.
Refining — the slow phase
Refining takes ten times as long as blocking. Edges get cleaned, colour temperatures adjusted, layers built. Painters call this "chasing the piece" — you make a decision, it reveals a new problem, you solve that, and it reveals another. The refining stage is where a piece either sings or becomes overworked.
Signing, sealing, shipping
Every finished piece gets signed on the back (not the front — a front signature interferes with the composition) with the year and title. Canvas gets a coat of matte or satin varnish for UV and dust protection. Denim and leather get a fabric-specific sealer that flexes with wear.
Packaging is over-engineered on purpose. Corners get cushioned. Canvases ship in wooden crates for large formats, rigid tube-boxes for medium. Nothing has been damaged in transit yet, and the goal is to keep that streak.