Laying the foundation for next year... a frantic pursuit for some new nut to crack!

I'd like to get serious this coming December. Meanwhile, I'm in hot pursuit of something new. A couple more "doodling" experiments:

• Turquoise phtalo (or blue) underpainting adding rose fluo before going for skin tones...

• Selectively superimposing transparent black and white over colors to establish shapes or to force partial black and white passages over a colorful rendition (I tried the other way around and it doesn't seem to work for me)...

•  Using a "reactive painting approach" over an abstract background, i.e., finding the subject after the fact based on established patterns and what comes to mind...

With the latter approach, a partial sealing of the raw canvas (with a mixture of acrylic medium and water)  will be necessary to promote free-flowing colors for the abstract background.

Based on my last experiments, a number of potential "dogmas" come to mind for 2012:

• Use  raw canvas or primed canvas depending on the effect sought after
• Use sketches as the foundation for my paintings (I should investigate projecting the original sketches on canvas to retain as much "truthfulness" as possible)
• If reference material is to be used, use video stills as opposed to photographs (the capacity to select the most impactful image)
• Experiment going absolute free style with no "chute", i.e. from memory
• Retain the "good" (what I like) from this year, from the past four years
• Merge styles that I have developed this year
• Make every painting the sum total of everything that I've learned, in other words, all styles and techniques (my vocabulary) should be used, the balance between them dictating the final look

 At any rate, something to mull over during the next few weeks!

Note to self:" Is it doubtful that I'm a real artist?... since thinking and free artistic expression work counter to each other. If I allow myself to go berserk within the boundaries of my logic... may be there is still some hope!"