Happy Sketches

Rather than post a photo today, I thought I would share with you some of my sketches from this recent trip.

Duomo, Florence

Santa Maria Novella, Florence

San Gimignano, Tuscany

San Gimignano, Tuscany

Sienna, Tuscany (I had to try to use the color 'burnt sienna')

Pantheon Exterior, Rome



Pantheon Interior, Rome

Campidoglio, Rome

Campidoglio, Rome

Piazza San Pietro, Rome

San Pietro, Rome

Baths of Diocletian, Rome

Why We Draw?

As architects, and students of architecture, when we travel we draw.  We draw to learn, to understand, to record, and to remember.

Sketching is a very personal activity for me.  It is a process of observation, examination, documentation and memory.  The sketch is both a tool for communication as well as an act of thought.  The travel sketch in particular is a process of recording and understanding the world we experience.  I can vividly remember the places I have drawn far more than any place I have photographed.  Each sketch holds a depth of meaning far beyond the object itself, as I can often recall specifics about each occasion.  These travel sketches are more than just documentation of research; they are my memories, each place inscribed in my mind’s eye as the lines are etched on the page.

Marvin Malecha, FAIA (Dean of the College of Design at NC State and former president of the AIA) sums up this feeling nicely in a wonderful little book that he wrote on sketching:

“Draw what you see, how you remember it and contemplate it.  Draw what you understand.  Draw to understand.  Draw with whatever medium you are comfortable.  Draw to enhance your skill of seeing.  Draw to remember.  Just draw and draw and draw.  It will bring you an acute awareness of who you are.”  Marvin J. Malecha The Urge to Draw, The cause to Reflect

Me sketching at St. Peter's