I asked Thomas Kegler if we could share all the class demonstrations that he did for his workshop last week so that I could explain what he was teaching.  Tom structured the workshop around the basic approach he uses to prepare for a studio painting.  He started each of the four days with a demonstration, which you can see below: 

The evening before the workshop began, Tom took a walk around the park to see what scenes inspired him.  That night at his hotel, he did this small sketch from memory.

Using this grid as a guide, Tom adjusted his compositional sketch until he arrived at a pleasing design.

This sketch is a bit larger, and he added some trees as foreground elements.

Back on site, Tom began to make careful drawings of the different elements in his composition.  First he made this drawing of the bridge with the palisade cliffs in the background.  All of his drawings and plein air paintings will be used in the studio to create a larger studio painting.

Later the same day, Tom made this sketch of a tree that he could use in the foreground of his painting.

This painting started out as a grissaille sketch that Tom did as a demonstration for the class.  Back in the studio, he continued working on it to create this evening scene.

This painting was done in about 3 hours as a demonstration for the class.

On days 3 and 4, Tom did these two paintings to demonstrate how he makes foreground studies.  This small scene will probably appear in the foreground of his studio painting.  It will also serve as a reference if he needs to create multiple plants like this in his painting.

While this tree will probably not appear in his final painting, it was very helpful to watch Tom go through the process in his demonstration.