Sketching Italy

Freehand sketches (no straight edges) from the Vicenza Study Abroad program while studying at UVa School of Architecture. Personal photography used for mixed media collages.

The Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta in Torcello, Venice

Letter written or my professor at the end of the program:

After having been in Vicenza for four weeks, and now looking back on the unexpected mixture of architecture, friendship, travel, and foreign experiences, it is clear that this program is nothing I expected, yet instead an unforgettable learning adventure by all accounts. Initially, since the beginning of the program was a direct link wrapping up the end of a challenging semester, I approached the class with an eager mindset to further my architecture education, while at the same time lacking confidence in an important representational tool. Though I’d like to blame AND happily praise it on the sun and heat; somewhere in the mis of Roman theatres, infinite wine, cattywampus columns, market bargins, preserved palazzos and populated piazzas; my momentum slowed and mindset shifted to allow me to grasp a new and different sense of time and space. As I now begin to flip through my sketchbook, it’s easy for me to recognize the progression of my drawing ability from the range of accurately portraying a perspective to capture depth, to inaccurately exploding an axon to suggest a questioning observation; and while I’m proud of the acquired skills I am only beginning to develop, and thankful for all aspects of my Vicenza education, I am even more excited for what I will see in this sketchbook in years to come. Because in all these lines and scribbles, hopefully I will more importantly remember the wine shared, the friendships formed, the nicknames made, and the laughter roared. Perhaps the most powerful architectural lesson I’ve learned this summer is it isn’t a piazza without people, and theatre without music, a casa without pasta, a porto without a key, a terrace without friends or a bar with boots.