Figure on Linen

I just did a figure sketch on linen canvas for the first time today.  My thoughts:  It's okay.  As long as I can keep getting linen canvases cheap, I'll go with them.  But by no means will I use them exclusively.  Honestly the surface and ground don't matter, but how you manipulate paint on those grounds does.  Linen is nice though, and hopefully I can pull off some good paintings with it.  Here's the figure sketch I just did:

Figure sketch
oil on linen
24x18 inches
2013

These particular canvases are primed for acrylic, so I had to prepare them once more for oil.  I simply did that by working a very thin coat of raw umber heavily diluted with linseed oil into the canvas.  I had to work it in pretty firmly since the clear gesso already on the canvas pretty much rejected the oil.  The reason I did it this way was because the natural color of the linen is a really nice gray color, and I wanted to use that to my advantage.  So with the thin, liquidy coat of raw umber, some of that gray was able to show through.  Really this first linen canvas was to experiment and see what it's like.  Good thing I got these suckers cheap.  MSRP = $50, and I got them for $12.