A Couple New Ones ...

I was trying to connect with my students this morning, as they had each gone to their various piazzas to sketch. Ordinarily we head out as a group, but they're in the final throes of collecting information and images for their piazza study projects (each student is assigned two small piazzas to document and analyze). It was an unsuccessful strategy, but I did manage to do a couple sketches myself. The first is the facade of Sant' Eustachio, sketched from the back side of the Pantheon. I was trying out a new pencil - a Faber-Castell "Pitt Oil-Base Extra-Soft." It was relatively smooth, with a nice dark tone, and a worthwhile change of pace from the Staedtler-Mars pencils I typically use.

The next sketch is Via degli Spagnoli, just off Piazza delle Coppelle. I was trying to be more patient with the watercolors, building up the darker tones as I went, and I think it paid off fairly well. I was a bit nervous about laying in the purple shadow on the left, but it was one of those instances where I knew immediately that it was the right thing to do to complete the drawing. So I celebrated a little with a frulatto (banana and pineapple) at Pascucci's on my way back to Tratevere.