Struggling with Juno in Oil.

I have decided that before I paint the Jorja family I would try an oil painting of Juno. I have never painted in oil before, although I have tried acrylic.
I'm using the photograph from the previous post and a 18 x 14 inch canvas panel.
The first step was to draw Juno on the panel using a HB mechanical pencil. I have drawn my own dogs so often, that this stage was fairly easy.

I then toned the canvas using a mix of raw and burnt sienna in acrylic. I chose the colours to achieve a mid tone into which I could work the lighter and darker tones and used acrylic because of its shorter drying time.

You can see here that I have slipped back into drawing rather than painting, I find it really difficult to give up the tight control I like.

A couple of friends whose opinions I greatly respect advised me that the first stage should be the blocking in of the main shapes so in the next stage I tried that.

The colours of the undercoat aren't yet right but I can correct in later layers.

As Juno has plenty of strands of fur round his head I decided that I should do the background next, in order to give it time to dry before I work the fur.

I used three colours, sap green, burnt umber and cadmium yellow medium.

I am using the Artisan water mixable oils, because the dogs are often in the room with me when I work and I didn't want them breathing in the fumes..

I was amazed at the ease with which I could create a background giving a suggestion of foliage. I found acrylics difficult to use because of their drying time, these oils were pure delight.