Chameleon III - preparing

I am planning to do more paintings in my chameleon series.

Here are my first sketches. I draw a smaller drawing freehand. This means I look at ref-photos, but only use my eyes as measure tools.

When I find the composition is okay, I draw the larger drawing freehand on watercolor paper.

I don't scale up my smaller drawing, as I sometimes do with other drawings. That's because in this series, I want the pencilststrokes very autentich and lively. They will be seen in the finished painting too. If you scale up, and redraw line upon line, the strokes will be more static. Fine in many cases, but not here.