Poster studies are a very helpful exercise to do before confronting your actual painting, they are not exactly a sketch but more of a tonal and value study of your future painting.
They offer a clear understanding of the overall tone and temperature of your composition, they help you to easily identify big masses and planes in your subject, and resolve your drawing in a simple way without any attention to details.
Poster studies should be done fairly quickly and preferably in a small size. These examples below are about 6 in by 9 in. They were done from live models and were a lot of fun to do. I can't wait to do more of these.
Posts
