I’ve definitely done this double-take more than once here in Florence.

(Apologies; forgot to take a pic of my painting progress today!)

Wonder what kind of reaction I’d get if I went in tomorrow, scribbled this, and ran out the door to spend a leisurely week getting fat(ter) on gelato.

A quick sketch I made while sitting in Boboli Garden. It’s a sculpture/fountain in the midst of many plants and trees.

Started up with the paint today; just a re-do of the sketch with very diluted raw umber, then a background color. Monday we’ll start in with “dead coloring,” or thick layers of flat color.

Here’s a look at how the drawing was transferred. First, I traced the sketch with red pencil. Then I loosely traced it on the opposite side with charcoal. Finally, I laid the charcoal on the canvas itself and traced with a pencil to transfer the charcoal. Whew!

After another tedious day, I’m almost to the point where I can transfer the image to my canvas. The drawing is all light and shadows–no shades of grey–because that’s all that will be transferred, via tracing paper.