Drafting:
A painting is designed virtually complete and all objects in it are plotted in 3 dimensions before I begin painting. Light sources and shadows are plotted as well, helping to create atmosphere.
The design is redrawn onto the canvas rather than projecting, as any error in a drawing will be magnified proportionally by the amount of the enlargement.

Scenes in my paintings are nearly always simulated rather than painted from life or copied. Even if I have good reference material, it is usually impossible to copy something verbatim, and I will have to reconstruct it.
The exception to this is if I'm adding organic elements, such as people, cloth, etc.
If I am able to position and light them correctly, I can either paint from life or photograph it and copy it to the painting.

Medium and Materials:
Acrylic Paint: (Murals)
I use Solver Brite-Glow low sheen series of paints which is made specifically for signwriters and scenic artists. It is an Australian made product.
It comes in tins and is similar in consistency to normal house paint, but rather than being tinted from a base colour, it is coloured with pigments.
This results in a tougher film and longer lasting colour when exposed to the elements.

Oil Paint: (Easel)
Most of my paint is made by 'Art Spectrum', (another Australian company), but I also use 'Winsor & Newton', and 'LeFranc & Bourgeois'.
I mostly paint opaque rather than translucent, but the paint is often thinned with glazing medium. At any rate, the paint is spread thinly so that the surface of the paint has no raised edges or brush marks.

Canvas:
Canvas is usually 12 oz cotton or linen on cedar stretchers and primed with an acrylic based gesso.

Thinners, Varnishes and Glazing:
I use varnish, glazing medium and retouch varnish that is basically made from Damar varnish, stand oil and gum turpentine according to the formulas in Ralph Meyer's book "The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques", which I highly recommend.
Beeswax can be added to the varnish to give it a more matt finish.
Mineral spirits ( mineral turpentine ) and acetone for cleaning brushes. Acetone is good for cleaning brushes when changing between water based and oil based paints.

Equipment:
Airbrush:
I use a Paasche VLS airbrush when using acrylic paint.
The airbrush is driven by a SIL.AIR noiseless compressor, a small Italian portable compressor with a membrane around the piston which is filled with oil to dampen the noise.

Draft for Modern Courtyard Move your mouse over the image to compare it with the finished mural

Software:
I have developed software to handle the perspective in my paintings. It is constantly in a state of development and is not commercially available.
It allows me to plot points in 3 dimensions, and store them along with planes and vectors.
(Points are stored as x, y, z coordinates and are mapped to the paintings' surface and displayed as x, y coordinates relative to the edges of the painting.)
If there are 3 or more points on a plane, a shaded polygon can be created, and multiple polygons can create more complex objects.
Rendering these polygons to the screen is a recent development which has allowed me to design the basic elements on a computer rather than paper.

The mural "Modern Courtyard" (above right) was the first painting that was designed in this way. Move your mouse over the image to compare it with the finished mural.
The draft shows shadows although the software wasn't able to render shadows at that time and I calculated them manually on the mural.