In the top photo, the piece on the left is the original rendering by the artist, and on the right, partway through, getting shapes down and what not. :) 

So here is my first study.  Took me... too long for what I got done, haha. :P Hopefully I'll start laying down the right strokes more quickly.  This piece is an impressionist artwork, and there are so many colours in this thing... but I think I got the values down pretty well.  The artist is Albert Leburg. 
Even now, I can see mistakes, but I'm done with it. Learned what I needed to know from it, and not going to fix the slope of a hill now, or the saturation of a certain path...
I was thinking of buying a monitor, so as to have more space to work on the art, as well as being able to zoom in in different areas and stuff.. maybe I'll figure something out.

This blog is going to contain, for the most part, my studies from different artists.  These will in all likelyhood be done digitally, but there may be some traditional ones thrown in here and there.  I'm mostly focusing on environments for right now, as that is what has piqued my interest of late.  
This is my latest piece before I start doing these studies.  We'll see what develops after a few months!