It might be hard to tell where I'm going from this photo but if you stick around, it wiil all become clear. As usual I start out with the darks. It's almost like drawing an outline. This does two things,
1: It gives me the blackest blacks for value reference and
2: It gives me the basic proportions and locations for starting my painting.
Although it's hard to see, there are some faint pencil lines, sort of a sketch on the canvas that I follow at this early point in the progression.