I prefer to work from life as much as possible, as it provides a richness of detail and a dimensionality to the work that cannot be duplicated with photography. Here is a typical chronology from the arrangement of props in my studio to the finished painting:

At times I construct a maquette from which to develop work:

All of my paintings progress from sketches to finished drawings before I commence painting:

I often begin a painting with a thinly applied monotonic underpainting before adding colour and detail in subsequent layers:

At other times, I forgo underpainting , but I nearly always lay a base coat of colour  over the layers of gesso before starting to paint: