And I'll make it sound so easy!!
I use painter's canvas for my backing and on that I draw the general landscape lines. Using those lines I place my cheater cloths, the obvious landscape fabric: the mountain, the distant forest. Then I work from the background forward. I generally put in all my detail as I move forward. MY philosophy is if you don't put in in detail where is belongs, you can't really put in in later. A lot of additional design goes over the first bits of detail, but c'est la vie. I used over 10 different green/landscape fabrics and then I thread paint the details. As for the figures, they were drawn on a tear away stabilizer and thread painted into the scene near the end.
Simple Yes? But frankly I have to walk away from the process several times a day. I get lost or my twitch muscles stop working. That's one reason I have several projects on the go at any given time.
Thank you so much for your support.
MK