a process of character painting - step 1

I tweeted about it on Sunday, but I've been trying something different....I grabbed some 18x24" cartridge paper, a paint brush and some liquid acrylic Paine's Grey.  From that I did 20 very, VERY loose gesture paintings, trying to get my arm into the drawing as much as my wrist.  I picked a couple of favorites, took shitty photos of them with my phone, imported them into photoshop and I'm starting to clean them up a bit.

Ultimately, I hope to use this for my next pop surrealism painting, where I'm going to be looking at Sam Kieth's work and trying for more looseness and expressiveness in my work.