Like most painters I like to study reference by painting it, or making a study. I'm not really trying to invent my own ideas at this point, just identify the major relationships of tone, color, perspective, and potentially story or something about what the focal area is. I opened Mapcrunch today to find a quick reference to study, something simple that I could study in an hour or less and focus on simplifying.
And of course Mapcrunch beamed me to an extremely visually complicated place. But there was an archway and I love archways. Also I've never known too much about this place, the old city of Jerusalem, but when I looked it up to see if this gate had a name I learned that this city has many more gates, each with interesting stories and names associated. So, with the real fear of an intense research-based side quest looming, I minimized the research tab and, for now, have just focused on the painting ;)
My one hour study was allowed to balloon to just over two because this was challenging in a good way with a good sweep of perspective, tight tonal relationships, and new brushes to put to good, and hopefully visually interesting, effect. While painting this I tried not to zoom in too much or often. To me, that is one of the definitions of a study- not getting too into details. Edge quality is in bounds and important, but anything that needs to zoom to be really appreciated or painted is out. So, probably about 6 x 8" on the screen while painting.