I start with a pencil, sketching out everything roughly. These are just simple guidelines that I'll try to follow, however, once I paint over them, not much of it will I be able to see.
step 2 of 3
I put down some rough values, meaning not really worrying about getting the exact shapes and colors right, but only to have something on the canvas to work with. Lacking good anatomy knowledge, I was struggling with the pose of the figure for a long time.
step 3 of 3
With a smaller brush, I refined the details on the face and the cloth. I took out one of the lamps because it wasn't really working with the lighting. This is pretty much the finished piece, before I took off the masking tape (it gives it a nice clean frame).