It’s tempting to cut the paper and jump right into the big painting. After all, that’s where the magic happens in the end, that’s what you’re working towards and what everyone is going to see. But it turns out there are a lot of important steps that have to come before the real deal.

I have learned about workup techniques from a host of professional artists in workshops and from books over the years. None of these steps are exciting or very artistically satisfying, but they are incredibly helpful for understanding your composition and your painting as a whole before you get started on it.

I may go into more detail in a later post about what these steps actually are and how you might approach it yourself. For now, I’m sharing a couple of pictures from this process on a currently in-progress painting.

That’s what’s new this week!