I have almost 4 weeks worth of sketching from my virtual trip to catch up on! So today I will share my additional week hanging out in the Veneto regions, based in Vicenza.

If you haven’t seen my earlier articles, I’m roughly going through the itinerary which I had planned for this year’s 11 week trip to Europe. Read more about the project here.

Up until this point in my journey I had followed my itinerary fairly closely, one week in Rome (see here, here and here), two weeks teaching the Palladian Odyssey Tours in Umbria (one of these weeks we hosted a virtual event for participants), a week based in Marostica and then the first Palladian Odyssey Veneto Tour (this was another event which we hosted for participants).

But from now on, my itinerary is looser. I’m roughly staying in the area I had planned to be in, but going to places that I would never have had the time to have visit (or sketch) in real life due to my teaching commitments.

So in this collection…

I based myself in Vicenza and walked up the hill to do a sketch of the whole city.

I sketched a lot of Palladio and started my 30×30 collection. See the full 30 here.

I drew numerous Palladian palaces from oblique views…

and sketched my favourite corner in the main piazza while enjoying a coffee.

I also attempted once again to sketch the incredible Olympic Theatre (by Palladio)…

and also visited Giancarlo Busato – a master printmaker – in his magical studio. (We had planned to have a printmaking workshop here)

Further afield, I revisited the lovely town of Asolo…

and also Bassano del Grappa – doing a sketch at the other end of town.

I visited Scarpa’s masterpiece Brion Tomb (and found it hard to sketch from photos)…

and then some Palladian villas – revisiting Villa Forni Cerato (where I had a special private tour last year)

These also two new ones (for me) Villa Caldogno…

and then Villa Angarano (which has a fun Baroque addition!)

Then finally I finished with one more sketch of Basilica Palladiana.

Sketching this on location is all about being surrounded by the life of the piazza. Sketching bay after bay and soaking up the elegant chill atmosphere of Vicenza. It’s easy to be bored when working from a photo as it’s just repetition, but if I try to bring back the memories of being there, sketching this building makes me very happy.

I was very sad to leave Vicenza!

Here is the full collection of all the pages from my sketchbook. You will notice two sketches from Venice in this – I came back to Vicenza after a week there. I’ll share my full Venice collection next.