This is the first picture of my work in progress, Mountain Goat in Shadow.  The most important thing to do when starting a painting is to draw out the main elements, in this case, the goat and the cliff face that the goat is laying on.

Next, I layed down the shadows of the rock, using Payne's gray.  The key to getting the effect of granite, is to use a sea sponge.  For the underpainting of the granite, I used transparent burnt umber, mixed with [russian blue.  Then I used the sea sponge to dab on the mixture, varying the thickness to give an idea of depth.