Last week I said that I was painting these portraits without an initial sketch. I should have been more specific to say that Im not drawing the portrait out with line before painting. The above underpainting is the first stage, where I'm getting the likeness with value as opposed to line. When I first started paining in Photoshop, I made a tight, accurate line drawing and stuck to it. Here, there is a lot of adjustments as I build it up. This is the first hour.