David’s Admirers

We all know that Florence is full of Renaissance art – and if we stop to think about it we also know that in consequence Florence is full of art-admiring tourists, their backpacks, their cameras and camera phones. So it seemed fitting to include, and indeed emphasise, these onlookers in a scene from the Galleria dell’Academia di Firenze.

As usual for this type of hybrid drawing/painting, the initial pen outline sketch went very well, but then things began to deteriorate once I started adding the colour. On balance I think that I managed to contain this slide in quality enough to avoid detracting too much from the overall impression, but only just.

(With apologies to Michelangelo, whose statue in real life is infinitely more impressive than this painting would have you believe!)