Daily Painting Practice - Winter Cityscape work in progress

Ok, so last week I attempted a small "easy painting" that ended up not being so "easy".  This week it seemed like the obvious thing to do would be to swing towards the opposite direction. Here's the underpainting stage, it almost looks like a watercolor.

Where do you begin? After painting in the sky I found myself thinking " where to start?" Do I paint from left to right? Or work over the whole painting  at the same time?

Here is the comparison to the plein air sketch. I mistakenly started painting over it before I caught myself. Sometimes it doesn't pay to try and be efficient. .

I decided to start with the center of interest.

One thing to note is if you have a weakness try and find a solution to help you improve it. I always have a hard time with windows and keeping a clean line in a cityscape. So I use a T-square as a guide, (I also have to remember to keep count of the windows...up and down!)

I thought  it would help if I zoomed in for you to see the area I am working on. You can see the guide lines for the windows I drew in with pencil.

This level of detail is very enjoyable for me. I am still watching for hard and soft edges, tone, and form even  zoomed in this far. This is the view my eyes have sitting directly in front of the painting. You need to be very careful though when sitting  this close. Be sure to step back often because....

This is the size of the painting! Keep your eyes on the big picture!!! (even when working on small details.)