This painting began with a rough pencil sketch on linen mounted to a birch board. I used a projector to help place guide lines (well, scribbles, really) to map out my basic forms.
Once I had my basic forms in place, I did a quick sketch in charcoal pencil to help plot my dark and light areas. To be successful, this painting would need to have strong contrasts between light and dark values, so that good edges would give form to the major components. With the busy work bench, I didn't want the man and his violin to be lost.
Then I do a light wash of acrylic to help settle the shapes and placements of major forms:
Then comes the underpainting. These are quick, broad strokes of oil paint, simply to help establish the colors of the painting. My goal here is to get the main blocks of color and form down so I can verify that the palette is working well. There's no detail, just brushstrokes.
I start to add detailed brushwork here, and borrow a friend's violin for reference
And now a little more (I lightened the man's shirt, because the warm tones in the picture above were too similar to his face tones, and he was getting lost against the dark wall):
The finished piece:
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