La Villa Rotunda, Vicenza, Italy, 1999.

Early sketches from my first trip to Italy. Eight years later, I had an opportunity to return to Vicenza and sketch again.

The EXTERIORS of the houses were far from remarkable—one stucco building blurred into the next, often with only a change in paint color to mark the property line…  

But the DOORS!

Palladio’s Basilica, Vicenza, Italy, 1991.

I vividly remember painting this scene of Vicenza, Italy.  It was my first attempt at painting with watercolor.  I recall positioning myself along canal Fiume Retrone which gave me a view of the south side of Andrea Palladio’s famous copper-domed Basilica, its clock tower rising in the background. After lightly sketching the outlines of the scene…

It was the summer of 1991.  I was a third year architecture student studying in Vicenza, Italy, a northern city in the Venato region.  Focusing on the architecture of the area, much of my time was spent training my eyes to see and my hands to capture the beauty that was before me…