Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Edgar Degas used a technique called peinture a l'essence (painting with spirits), or simply "essence." The method produces pastel-like paintings that feel as much like drawings as they do paintings.
Get a small piece of chipboard to use as a palette. Lay down your oil paints in small piles and let the cardboard soak out the oil for maybe ten or fifteen minutes. Then thin the paints with straight turpentine (or a turp substitute).
For a surface, get a stiff piece of chipboard. For "Portrait of a Young Woman," I painted on a piece of chipboard that I recycled from the back of a drawing pad.
If you want something acid-free (buffered) you can get Davey Board from Talas or Daniel Smith. Blick has a similar product made by Lineco. I've also been using Butter Board from Utrecht. Scrapbook suppliers sell acid-free chipboard in smaller sizes. Picture framing suppliers sell it in larger sizes (it's basically the inside layer of regular matboard).
Use a small brush to draw short strokes with thin paint, like you would with egg tempera. The cardboard surface draws out the oil from the paints so that they are very dry and don't blend.
The texture is very pleasing, and the warm grey of the chipboard adds to the look.
At the Frick Museum a couple years ago, I saw two Lautrecs painted this way and they seemed to be holding up fine considering cardboard is unarchival.
