During my study abroad experience, I got the opportunity to visit the Colosseum in Rome. This was so incredible because it's something that, as architecture students, we see constantly in text books. But, a text book could never do this justice. The Colosseum is so much larger than I ever imagined. I just had to stand there and take it all in, which for me is often best done through sketching. So, I pulled out my sketchbook and put some lines on paper to try to capture everything that I was seeing. It's sketches like this that bring back so many memories about my trip.

This sketch was done inside the new packaging science building at Clemson. This is the view that you get when you first walk inside and can look directly back through to the outdoors. I chose to show the orange wall in color even though this sketch is mostly black and white because it definitely stands out within the space. This sketch was done in class with the intention of learning the idea of frame of reference and how to draw perspectives.

These two sketches are from one of the most memorable experiences that I had during my entire study abroad experience. They are from a hike that a group of three of us took from Camogli, a city about fifteen minutes from Genoa, where we were living, to the beach at San Fruttuoso. Beginning the hike, we really knew nothing about what we were getting into. There were several trails to choose from. Little did we know, we chose the expert hiker trail and the hike that we had heard would take 2 hours ended up taking 5. Needless to say, it was quite an experience. It turned out to be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life and also one of the most risky experiences of my life. There were times where we were literally hanging onto a cliff by a chain with nothing but our own two hands to keep us from falling the long fall to the Mediterranean Sea. That being said, this hike was absolutely gorgeous. The view from these heights was unlike anything I've ever seen before. You could see clear to the bottom of the water. These beautiful views just encouraged me to want to sketch. The top sketch was one of the views along the hike and the lower sketch was done while sitting on the beach in San Fruttuoso. Both were done in pen.

This particular sketch evokes a lot of emotion for me. For four months, I lived in the city of Genoa, Italy to be able to study the architecture in Italy and all throughout Europe. I absolutely fell in love with the city and the villa that we lived in. I lived there with 20 other Clemson architecture students and we quickly became family. This sketch is the view of the city from the villa balcony. The portion to the left of the sketch is the villa which is owned by Clemson. The sketch begins to depict the landscape of the city and the way that it is built upon a hill. The villa sat about halfway up the hill with over 200 steps down to the city center. This sketch is done in pen because it is one of the tools that I feel the most comfortable with and the tool that I focused on most during my study abroad experience. One regret that I have is that this sketch does not capture the beautiful varying colors of the historic city.

Remaining in the same general area as the previous drawing, I am now working on a series of sketches connecting the Brooks Center to Bowman field, as these are two very similar spaces. Before beginning the series of sketches, I first drew a diagram of the spaces between the field next to the Brooks Center all the way to Bowman field. These spaces include the geometric landscape behind Cooper Library, the library itself, the reflection pond, the amphitheater, the Carillon gardens, and then Bowman Field. This series of perspective sketches will capture views along the way in a quick atmospheric sort of way. This is just the first of the sketches in this series. Each of these are done in a matter of about ten minutes of drawing and five to ten minutes of applying color. One interesting thing about this sketch that I enjoyed was playing around with the use of a light yellow color to capture the light on the covering of the walkway.

This drawing looks at the Brooks Center from the open field located behind the Strom Thurmond Institute. It is interesting in the way that this field relates to Bowman field with other landscapes lined up in between, but yet this space is rarely, if ever, used. While working on this drawing, I learned a new way to capture the essence of the sky and the sun that I'm going to continue using in future drawings. It gives the idea of sky and clouds without completing the entire thing. The way that the landscape comes to the front and the building fades to the back gives a very interesting feeling to the drawing.

We've now moved on to a new medium in class, oil pastels. I love the freedom that this tool gives you, the boldness of the colors, and the texture that it provides. An idea can be portrayed in just a few simple strokes of color across the page. Here is a sketch and a drawing of the back side of the Fluor Daniel building as well as the Sonoco Institute. The first sketch was done in a matter of about five minutes using first a brush pen to capture the basic shapes of the structure and then quickly sweeping color across the page to capture the environment. This was done on one day of class and then during the next class period, we sat down for a longer period of time to fully capture the atmosphere with all of its details. The larger drawing took around an hour to complete. First, I drew the basic forms with pencil, then added details in brush pen. Then, I added color and texture with the oil pastels. I am really pleased with the way that the rolling landscape came through with the variation of colors and the buildings in the background blend into the landscape.