Thinking about painting and painting surfaces

In the last missive, I spoke about a recent painted piece. 

I used a partially finished wooden head to paint on and realized (then and now) that this was a device to make it easier to start the painting-that is, the act of picking up a brush, unscrewing the top from the tube of oil paint and applying the color-there was no other more complex forethought or planned design preceding the pigment to surface.
Although first happy with the painting, I now know I was really more happy with the act of painting and using the color and brush. I now think the painting mediocre-or maybe the notion that, in combination with the sculptural "crutch", it is all the more interesting...

S'pose I need a good healthy "starter" in order to paint-although I love the idea of the big stretched canvas, I seem to be allergic to all that white stuff AND the vast stretch of open space it holds. Painting it all with a tint or even black helps, but not all that much.
I'll digress and try to draw an analogy here: when I was a child and MUCH more shy and withdrawn than I am today, I used to occasionally sit on the porch of my family's suburban house in NJ. If I heard someone approaching (a concrete sidewalk told all) from down the block, I'd go around to the back of the house and get out of sight. This shyness also took over when a car passed by-I'd find some excuse to look down or away during the second or two it took the vehicle to pass. So here's the analogue: big, white open spaces = fear for the exposed me. Maybe it's too far to reach, but since I've battled with painting all my life, no rock remains unturned. I realize that doing a painting exercise every day (read, facing that big  white surface daily) would get me over this problem, but I'm far too impatient for this-and, there is a lot of 3D work to get done.

Yesterday,in the studio, I hunted for another "crutch" surface on which to paint. It brought to mind my father, who had the problem of never starting his work-when cleaning out the family house after his death, I found tons of "practice" painting and carving-the most worthless scrap would serve as a staging area for him-yet he left behind -untouched- so much in the way of usable paper and canvas surfaces and carvable pieces of wood. There was a certain sadness in seeing just how tentative/insecure he was, but this is another story.

To a certain degree, I see myself looking for "partially started" surfaces-that is, combining my father's idea of permitting himself to use the "worthless" or the throw away on which to work- and trying to get something that is already marked up- an almost started canvas or bit of wood surface-ideally something that "nature" or circumstances has "worked" on in order to continue that work with my own hand.

I suppose that this is not unlike some of my sculptural work, which incorporates time-worn bits from the world with my own carvings and scribblings.