Bridges Florence - Ponte Vecchio

Acrylic on Canvas 20” x 16”

This picture shows the laying in of the stones on the Ponte Vecchio, the first bridge in the picture. On closer examination of the reference photo I noticed more detail in the stones and several support beams for the overhanging shops. Although they will be in dark shadow I wanted to include them for authenticity and detail. As soon as I finished working on the stones I noticed changes that needed to be made to the lower bridges and water so I worked over them adding more tone and detail. At this stage I am mostly painting with 1/8-1/16” wide round brushes and using the tip of an exacto knife to pick out crisp edges and bright highlights. It’s a technique I borrowed from watercolor painting and is a good way to achieve these effects without the use of white paint. My friends sometimes tease me about having spent hours putting paint on the canvas and then scraping it all off but it is really only the small highlighted areas. The painting is coming along great but I can see that I will need to add more paint to the stones because I want the bridge to act as a frame for the river scene.