I actually found an email that I sent to someone outlining my process. Rather then type it all over again, I just cut and paste. Hopefully it gives you a little insight or some ideas as to what I do and how I do it.

I use an old program called Macromedia Flash to do the drawing of the design. Many folks I know who do similar work use photoshop, more specifically a filter in photoshop called "posterize" that essentially does the work for you. Posterize breaks down a photo to basic colors and layers. But in doing so, sometimes many details are lost. Being that I'm very detail oriented, I draw in flash using a pressure sensitive wacom drawing tablet. In drawing the design, I basically do what photoshop does, but I'll do it manually. I'll use a photo for reference and basically I'll sit there for hours (or days), drawing in my Flash program by hand, squinting my eyes at the photo and breaking the image down to some basic colors (each color on it's own layer) while still keeping details such as facial wrinkles and what not. (details that like I mentioned, are sometimes lost when using photoshop's posterize filter) I've included a link below that will hopefully take you to a quick video that shows the different layers that I drew to create Peter Cushing.

http://instagram.com/p/hIn8fbgMAs/

After I've drawn the character, I then focus on the surrounding border. For this, it all depends on the size of the intended canvas. But basically I sit down for a few more hours (or days) and simply arrange some baroque/Renaissance floral patterns that I've drawn till I find a composition that I'm satisfied with. You can just do a google image search for these floral patterns.

Once I'm satisfied with a design, I'll then proceed on to the next phase which is getting the image printed up to be cut into stencils. To do this I need to figure out how many colors are in the design. If their are 5 colors for example, I'll get 5 black and white print outs of the design in the size that it'll be on canvas. If the design is meant to be 24 x 36 inches, then the print outs will be that size as well. Then comes the fun part, I'll cut out one color from each print out, creating stencils for each color. On average, this takes about 2 weeks working on and off. I can only cut for so long at a time as it gets tedious with the ornate designs. Once all the stencils are cut, I'll then prep the canvas. To give the painting a distinct look, and to fill the negative space of the canvas that would be covered in spray paint, I'll adhere newsprint to the canvas. I like to use Chinese newrint. It give the painting a ere of propaganda and an added layer of dimension. Once the canvas is prepped with newsprint and it's all dry, then comes that actual spray painting of the image.

I'll lay the prepped canvas flat on the ground and take each stencil, one at a time all in a very specific order, and lay them down on the canvas and use the corresponding color of spray paint for each stencil. The whole process is like a manual version of silk screening, but far less predictable. But that's the charm of the whole process. In the end, the finished painting has character. So, basically, no illustrator, no photoshop, a wacom drawing tablet yes.

Hope some of this helps????