I've made a step by step of the recent painting, walking through the thoughts of each step.

Go check it out here: https://imgur.com/gallery/wS16yeO

Using my latest piece as a learning and information reinforcement for myself and others who are interested.

You only need 2 values to make a statement and describe a piece.

So what im trying to say is, your focus should be making sure your piece makes sense even if it's simplified into 2 values. A common mistake is to make your bounced light(Usually within a shadow) more or equally as bright as your second value(The one with direct light) and the tones within it, usually resulting in messing up the value structure....But that would be for next time.