venice - photo

my friend sukey and her husband bill went to italy for a romantic and adventurous holiday a while back. she gave me this glorious photo of one of the canals in venice, thinking i might like to paint the scene. so i thought it would be fun to document a painting as i go along...over the next couple days i'll post different stages i go through and in the end, it may or may not look like this photograph. i just might put my own stamp on it.....anyone can do a painting that looks like a photograph - that's not the idea of painting - you want to try and capture the feeling or essence of the place so we'll see how it progresses.