American Revolution: it's starts in Black and White

This is the first stage of my master copy of the famous painting Washington Crossing the Delaware ... It's my condensed approximation of the "High Venetian" style as practiced by painters like Bassano and Veronese and the like before it moved on to France in late 17th and 18th century ... So this is step one ... acrylic on canvas. On my palette is a pile of white, a pile of mixed brown-black color, and in between is a pile of middle grey tint of the two ... with that ready then I go at it aiming to lay down the simple essence of the design knowing that I'll get the nuance in a later stage