Athens, and the Orthodox Easter!

Hello again,

I have a little bit of blogging time before going out to explore this wonderful city on this wonderful day (Orthodox Easter), except that almost everything is closed. This makes it easier for sketching, and we won’t be tempted to shop.

Well, I guess I will give a brief explanation of our watercolor trip while I’m here waiting for Klaudia, Kelsey, and Jon to get ready.

We all met up in Venice for four days to first try watercoloring the canal scenes, St. Marco’s square, and all of Palladios works. I stayed in an apartment with five other people and we were able to cook our own food whenever we wanted – so I learned how to make casserole. Oh the things we learned in Venice. Getting out of Venice to catch our bus proved really difficult in the morning, as I took the wrong Waterbus to get to the airport and ended up separating from Klaudia as we were trying to get off once we realized our mistake. Long story short: I got there an hour late, pretty soaked from the rain.

We drove for a couple of hours and passed through the rain (or ahead of it) into Slovenia and the town of Piran where we checked into the hostel for a night and went out to watercolor and sketch the little picturesque town on the edge of the sea. It was absolutely gorgeous and it got better as we traveled further. Watercoloring was getting better too! We had critiques with Michael Plautz (our sketch trip leader) in a bar off of the main plaza and then went out for a great seafood dinner.

The bus came the following morning and had the intention of driving us to Rovinj for the day before our overnight bus trip to Split, however a most fortunate series of events happened. First we drove past a beautiful inlet, so the bus driver took a little detour to bring us closer to the water. At this rest stop, there was a boat getting ready to leave that was headed for Rovinj, so our bus driver managed to get us on it for 10 euros, including a fish lunch and entertainment for three hours, and said he would meet us in Rovinj. Let me just say this was one of my most favorite experiences of the trip! AMAZING. Okay my friends are getting antsy so I better finish this up a little faster… My friends can read my written journal later…

After the overnight but we got to Split (Diocletian’s Palace) at 5 am and tried to find our hostel… where we slept for another 5 or so hours. I found a Croatian mass and felt like I was in a room full of my grandmothers. It was awesome. We sketched, watercolored, and made pasta for dinner for 15 people in our tiny kitchens, and then took a walk to the beach. It was gorgeous.

Again, another bus took us to Dubrovnik, but this time it was a rocky public bus. We got in and were met by a guy with two vans to take us to our apartments about 6km outside the city. We were right on the water but had to take the bus to and from Dubrovnik. The first day we just stayed at the apartment and made dinner for everyone, and afterwards just sat in the moonlight, drinking and talking until late. The next two days we all spent in the city and sketched from everywhere (it isn’t that big, but it is the oldest remaining completely walled city in Europe).  We climbed the city walls and walked around its 2 km. It was a fun old time. The third day we were there, two friends and I went and climbed a mountain…..

Ohp! Times up! I’ll write more later.

Peace and love. I miss my family and friends and think of you often.

Love love love, Liz

Writing from Split, Croatia.

Hello World. Right now I’m at a hostel at 6AM in Split. We just took an 8 hour bus ride from Rivenj. It has been a great sketch trip so far. Our apartment in Venice was amazing and watercoloring is actually really fun but very hard. I much prefer sketching. It’s great to have a purpose in these places we’re going apart from just “touring”.

 

Fave time: Yesterday (Oh, by the way we had the best bus driver EVER – most spontaneous and flexible person ever) our bus driver (on our way from Piran in Slovenia to Rivenj in Croatia) stopped to look at this gorgeous inland sea in the hills and hooked us up with a 10Euro ferry lunch ride to Rivenj where he would meet us with the bus. The boat trip was absolutely amazing. We had this insanely strong vodka-like drink in the beginning and a great fish lunch while being seranaded by a German accordian player. We all got a lot of sun, pictures, and memories.

 

Anywho, I’m half asleep and we have to meet up later today to watercolor Diocletian’s palace so I’m going to try and get some sleep.

 

Love!!!

Potager du Roi Reception Space and Facilities: Semester Design Project

Hello!

These are the boards from my semester design project that I have been working on and finally turned in last week. The project program called for new reception spaces and other facilities for the Potager du Roi in Versailles (literally, the King’s vegetable garden). It is a world heritage site and the one restraint on our site was that we had to keep the old garden wall. In this design I followed the site geometry as the basis of the design and then experimented with the concept of a wall. (If you want, I can go into more later, just ask!)

Take a look:

potager-boards-final-ekeane

it. is. [nearly] finished.

hello everyone. Why, yes, I did drop off the planet to complete my semester design project and then to take a coma for two days. Actually, not really. This past week and the beginning of this week I spend working until 4am and eventually the entire day and night on Sunday and Monday completing my design project. On Tuesday at 10pm I helped my roommate turn hers in and then slept for a whopping 13 hours until Structures class the following morning. I am writing this in studio, sitting here on this gorgeous Friday after taking my final exam in Structures. Life is good.

During the course of the hell week, I have been emailing different firms (as usual, like I always do in my spare time) and have been requested to send in my portfolio. I am still working on it and so this weekend will also be filled with many things to do. On top of that, (not that I’m complaining) I will be traveling to Mont St. Michel in Brittany on the Atlantic with some friends. I know it will be great.

What else? The school year is winding down and after this week I will be traveling across the southern parts of this great continent on a long sketch trip and travel break before arriving back and giving a final presentation of the semester design project. May 7th is the last day of school (technically). Even though today I finished my classes. Hmm.

Anyway! I hope that everyone is doing well. Love,

Liz