Rabbit on a Crate with an Apple, 24x24, 0il

I thought it would be funny to show the progression I go through when doing an oil painting. So, this is the progression of a painting of my friend and fellow Rabbit Advocate Kem Sypher. Though Snowflake is no long on this earth Kem, a photographer extraordinaire, has many photos of her which he has shared with me. I always start out with a canvas toned with burnt Sienna, either oil or acrylic, it doesn't matter at this stage. This canvas was toned with oil burnt sienna. Then I layout the subject matter in the Bistre style (no that isn't a typo). You can look that up on Google; basically it is painting in one color using the wipe out method to achieve the under painting. I don't move on to color until I have the layout perfect. This saves a lot of time when I start painting with color. Also, I don't have to go back in and change any compositional mistakes if I paint the under painting is Bistre. Once the under painting is exactly the way I want it I start laying in color. My darks are painted thinly and the lights are painted very thick. The painting goes very fast this way. The first afternoon I laid out the composition (Bistre). The next day the under painting was dry enough to start laying in color. It only took another afternoon to paint the rabbit and the apple. Now, I had to let that dry to paint the crate. Here you can see the progression of the painting. It isn't finished yet. I'll add the final photos of the painting as I complete the next stages. Oops! The last photo should be the first photo, showing how I start the layout. More to come.....