Painting in progress - Day One

I have a thing for flowers.  If you go to my web site www.sherrinelson.ca you'll see that I paint them quite often.  I thought it'd be fin and informative for me to post progress photos that show how I go about getting the basic outlines onto the canvas, and show the different stages that a painting goes through.

I'm working on a 16x20 canvas and using oil paints.  The subject of this piece is a deadly nightshade in the Datura family - I believe it's known as Angel's Trumpet.  This wasn't my original plan, I was going to paint the frosty white bloom of the Jimson weed.  I had seen them before and I know they open as the sun sets, that certain twilight light makes for some lovely colours on the petals.  In my search for images I came across the swooning elegance of Angel's Trumpet and my selection was made.

below are the pics of my process and progress.  Enjoy:

I print out the image "tiled" onto several pieces of paper.
I tape them together and rub dark conte crayon over the back side.

You can see the light markings on the canvas where the conte
has rubbed off where I've traced over the design

And here I have begun to block the paint in