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.