8 Days in Italy

As a senior in high school who has studied art intensively over the past 4 years, I quickly realized that nothing prepared me for the excitement of sitting down and drawing all across Italy.

Of course with the background knowledge that I had attained during my sophomore art history class, I was able to understand just what I was looking at; and my appreciation for that class only grew as I stood and sketched Giambologna’s Rape of the Sabine Woman in the Accademia in Florence and noticed other tourists mindlessly snapping quick photos of the sculpture and moving on to the next room. This touristy practice can be found in any public art space in the world, but when you know what you’re looking at, it’s hard to let a picture on Instagram be the only proof that you were there.

The moments when the tour calmed down came with the best sketches. On our last day in Rome, while the group shopped along Via del Corso, I found some time to enjoy Vanilla gelato at the end of the street and draw in Piazza del Popolo.

And while a junior kicked around a soccer ball with a family in Piazza Colonna, I sketched an apartment that was drenched in sunlight. My favorite part about Rome was the abundance of Italian stone pine trees, so they often make appearances throughout my sketchbook.

A repeated motif that can be found in my sketchbook are bees. The Barberini’s were a family of Italian nobility during the 17th century; their coat of arms consisted of three bees and can be found on buildings that they helped fund across Rome.

– by Annie Lee-Daly 16