rainy day - back to the studio

I thought I was going riding today - supposed to be sunny and dry. Instead I woke up to steady rain and decided it was time to go into the studio.

I've been picking away at this project for a week or two - I decided to pull the paintings off some of these panels to reuse them so that was step one. Once the canvases were off I sanded and re-sealed the panels. Now I'm working on a little experiment with my surface prep. These have some molding paste mixed with gesso and I tried brushing it on for the first coat here. Then for the one on the left I sort of troweled the mixture on with a painting knife and did a second brushed coat on the one on the right. I'll probably sand it a bit too when it's dry. I'm not sure the texture shows up that well in the photos - it was very gloomy and dark today :P

I'm hoping for a thick and smooth texture on these but with some tooth to it so I can paint like it's gesso but draw with a pencil like it's paper. I can't really draw straight onto canvas the way I would on paper so I'm hoping this will give me some more options.