Week 2 of Classes

I’m halfway through the second week of classes in Rome and things are starting to speed up! This week we are working on drawing the four elements (water, air, fire, and earth) and we go out walking to various sites in Rome each day to draw for 3 hours. On Monday, my class focused on water and we went around to various fountains throughout Rome to draw water at different speeds. Look at the one below—It was used in the ancient baths of Caracalla and it is actually shaped like a bathtub! At the end of class, we climbed up a huge hill that looked over the city of Rome, and it was beautiful.


The bathtub fountain!


View from the top of the hill

On Tuesday, we focused on drawing air. We did this by analyzing the ways in which buildings curve and how the curves add to a person’s sense of the air within the site. We went to the Palazzo de Quattro Fontaines, which is an intersection with fountains at each of the four corners. It was busy and cold and wet and I was having a pretty difficult time. But then, we went inside the beautiful church of St. Charles where I was able to bounce back and I got pretty into my drawings. It was really fun. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries, so I have no pictures of the church, but if I go back there I will take some pictures for you, it is absolutely gorgeous.

Today, we had our Modern Art and Architecture class and they walked us all over the city. We talked about the history of Rome and how the buildings changed according to who held the power within the city (first it was emperors, then popes, and then kings). They showed us a lot of buildings and explained how they transformed over time. We also went to a museum with a very modern addition (rare in Rome), it is kind of controversial to put modern architecture in such a historical city, but I personally liked it. After seeing the modern addition, we went inside the old part and saw the modern art of Calder. Then, after our lunch break, my drawing class went to focus on drawing fire. To do this we focused on the ephemeral aspect of architecture and how some things are only designed to last for a short period of time.


An ancient roman building melded with a renaissance building


This is what the streets of Ancient Rome looked like-- this is a shopping street and the holes are the ancient storefronts


The modern addition to the Museum


Our Fire site

I finally took pictures of our studio!


Our studio building from the outside


My Studio!


Our Lecture Hall