Well after another week's work on my painting of Keira and Ursula and I know that it's easier to work with a brush over a surface where the texture is approximately parallel - even when the brush strokes are across the grain. The picture on the left shows 2 days' worth of brush painting.

However, I'm now realising that the finished painting is going to look very different - just look at the regular texture and compare is with the random texture of the of my painting of Gerry and Keira (below).

Finally what will be my painting of Ursula and Steve where I'm priming the canvas with what would otherwise be wasted paint.