Pencil sketch on paper. I never really worry about the pencil coming through the color when the painting is done. So much color is going to be used that you will never see the drawing. I use H3-H5 (hard) pencil. The harder the pencil, the longer it will stay and not get effected by water and paint.

First color strokes after selecting the color pallete. In this case I have decided to stay with a very limited colors: Burnt Umber, Payne's grey (for the pigeon), a little blue and of course my favorite Ivory Black.

You should work on the whole painting at one time. Do not just concentrate on the details. You need to give yourself an idea of how the lights and darks work next to each other.

Almost all of the painting is covered by color. You can see clearly the 3D shape of the object. The next step I would do is to make the darks more intense and give a light overtone of highlights.

Now I would start worry about texture! I would not mind the drips of water. The idea is that pigeon is not afraid of the stone guard and spends a lot of time sitting on it, so the "poop effect" is just helping to tell the story.

Making more drips, mixing paint with some white gouache paint.

Painting is done. Ah... Nice! After 3 sessions of 4 hours I am happy with my work. The paper is very deformed, cause I did not stretch it. Now I will spray some water on it and put under my home press.

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