Steps of 'Ablaze'

1. For this kind of portrait studies, I usually have two versions of the reference, located next to and over/under the area in which I'm going to paint. It allows me to easily flip the canvas as a whole whenever I need to, and it also makes it easier to see if my painting has the same proportions as the original.
2. I start by painting the main colours I'm going to work with: this time, they're rather close to the beautiful colours of the reference. I also play with random textured brushes, to see if nice shapes emerge. (15mn)
3-4. The rest of the time is spent detailing the painting further, using different brushes and colour-picking from the already painted colours... I could spend much longer on this part, if I wanted the final work to look more like the reference, but 2h is enough for a study