With the 10-week Group Run-through of my Buildings course starting today (so excited about this!) I’ve decided to start sketching my way through Palladio’s more public and urban buildings. A few months ago I sketched all of his villas (see here) but now I’m going to be exploring his palaces, churches and other buildings. The list I have from the Palladian Museum includes approximately 50 works so this will keep me going for a while! What I’m really looking forward to is sketching some buildings that I’ve walked past many times in Vicenza but never had a chance to sketch.

I’ve been sketching trees so much (and doing lots of scribbly lines) that I feel a little rusty doing precise drawings.  So this first one was definitely a warmup.

The earliest work attributed to Palladio is this portal to Santa Maria dei Servi in Vicenza and the amazing thing is that I never knew this was Palladio.

I held my 1-on-1 review sessions as part of the Palladian Odyssey workshops at the gelato place next door!

Next up – the first of Palladio’s palaces: Palazzo Civena. I haven’t walked past this building in any of my visits to Vicenza, so it was fun to do some research and get to know it better.

It was good to draw!

Both of these sketches were done with my new Sea Glass Estie pen by Esterbrook (with Palladium trim). This was a gift from the lovely people at Goldspot Pens and I’ve been loving it!

It’s a little heavier than I would normally use but the shape feels good in my hand while I’m sketching. The nib is super smooth and although not a flex nib, I’m getting good variation from it. And I love its design – it’s such a gorgeous pen! This is the only pen I have at the moment loaded with black ink so that is another reason why I used it for these sketches. I just felt like doing them in black!

And yes, it’s not too late to join the Group Run-through for Buildings. I won’t be offering this again until 2023 – more details here.