painting started as a gesture drawing with a black ink pen on top of a painting panel that i had prepared ahead of time with and abstract design. the gesture drawing was done quickly to capture movement and the general shapes of the composition. notice the quirky cast shadows on the ground created by the dancers. when i was done with this painting, i was particularly happy with it because the finished piece shows a lot of the original, expressive gesture drawing that i started with. there is a lot of actual texture in this piece that cannot be fully appreciated from a photo of the piece. the painting is 