Shop/Crit

Faculty meetings these days are rough ... like most folks in higher ed, we're being forced to deal with major budget issues that will have serious consequences. There are no billion-dollar bailouts and "golden parachutes" for public universities, that's for sure. Anyway, this is where we usually meet - called the "Shop/Crit" space, which derives from the fact that the room next door houses our wood/technical shop where students fabricate architectural models, and that we use this space for design critiques, or "crits." The projection screen on the left had some unhappy stuff on it ... the big tree outside seemed more optimistic, with spring just around the corner.

Renfrew Hall

Nice sunny day today, so I got out the old U of Idaho campus sketchbook and headed outside at lunchtime. The last time I drew in this book, devoted exclusively to scenes on this campus, was in August 2007. So it was long overdue. Had a little trouble finding a suitable place to sit, as there's still plenty of old, dirty snow around, and had to settle for a spot in the shade. That's why this was only a 20-minute sketch - my hands were freezing by the end. This is the building where I lecture every Tuesday in the spring as part of the Architectural Graphics course I teach ... so I spoke to about 140 students here in the morning, and drew the outside in the early afternoon.

Público Newspaper

Gabi Campanario of Urban Sketchers just posted an image of the Público newspaper in Portugal with an article about the Urban Sketchers blog and network, dated January 9. Lo and behold, the image in the right column, second from the top, is one I had posted on flickr. I had also blogged about this sketch here a few weeks ago. It just happened to be an old sketch I felt like putting online ... and a couple days after that it was in print in Portugal. Crazy!