Often watching an artist paint can be the most educational experience another artist can have. 

On a recent trip to Charleston I had the honor of watching one of America's leading plein air 

painters work. I watched as Kevin Macpherson went from start to almost

finish on a painting of this man (below) named Ray. 

This is Kevin Macpherson starting with a pencil drawing on a untoned canvas.

Here are 4 different photos taken as Kevin painted. 

1- Establishing the darkest darks.

2- Blocking in some color.

3- Local color almost all blocked in.

4- Starting to get some detail in the painting.

Here is Kevin Macpherson's Fianl painting. NICE!

After watching the block in of Kevins painting I couldn't help myself and I painted 

a little 6x8 sketch of Ray. This painting below took me about 20-30 minutes.