The SOUTHERN STATES: USA Map-Drawings

I've just finished the Southern States Map-Drawings! Celebrating MLK Day. I imagine every one of these states saw Dr. King in his dynamic lifetime and yet feels his indomitable spirit of peace.https://www.etsy.com/shop/turnofthecenturies?section_id=14268693

Here they are - sort of geographically hung on my wall. Now, I waffled over Texas and Oklahoma. Is OK. in the Midwest? Is TX. its own region? Some (from Carolina) even say Virginia's not The South...  It's an exclusive club and membership and debatable. Well, here's The South as it settled out for me.
Each drawing features the state tree and a quintessential or common small house type found in-state, layered over the state's borders and topography, and highways.  You choose the location of a small red heart or house - where's special to you? Available in 8x10 Prints and Postcards. https://www.etsy.com/shop/turnofthecenturies?section_id=14268693 

LOUISIANA! (New Orleans hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/163836450/louisiana-map-8x10-print

MISSISSIPPI! (Natchez & Starkville hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/176118504/mississippi-map-8x10-print

ALABAMA! (Birmingham hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/176121358/alabama-map-8x10-print

FLORIDA! (Miami & Jacksonville marked)
 https://www.etsy.com/listing/167598706/florida-state-map-postcard
https://www.etsy.com/listing/167609707/florida-map-8x10-print  

GEORGIA! (Atlanta & Savannah marked)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/163903917/georgia-map-8x10-print

SOUTH CAROLINA! (Charleston hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/163930899/south-carolina-map-8x10-print

NORTH CAROLINA! (Asheville hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/175002215/north-carolina-map-8x10-print

VIRGINIA! (Charlottesville hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/163923727/virginia-map-8x10-print

WEST VIRGINIA! (Charleston & Morgantown marked)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/175992494/west-virginia-state-map-postcard
https://www.etsy.com/listing/175998867/west-virginia-map-8x10-print

KENTUCKY! (Lexington hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/176028154/kentucky-map-8x10-print

TENNESSEE! (Memphis & Knoxville marked)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/176042479/tennessee-state-map-postcard
https://www.etsy.com/listing/176027294/tennessee-map-8x10-print

ARKANSAS! (Little Rock hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/175773895/arkansas-map-8x10-print

OKLAHOMA! (Tulsa hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/175791815/oklahoma-map-8x10-print

TEXAS! (Austin hearted)
https://www.etsy.com/listing/175733667/texas-map-8x10-print

Houses Against the Grain: The Tour, Charlottesville

What are YOU doing this weekend? It's PRESERVATION WEEK. If you are in Charlottesville VA, consider touring some interesting houses we've researched in the Community History Workshop at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, with Professors Daniel Bluestone & W.G. Clark. The Tour and exhibit at the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society were designed by Madeleine Hawks, Camille Behnke, Jessica Lankston, Joanna McKnight, Kim Larson, and Kirsten Sparenborg with research material from other Community History students and community members. 
It's also a featured Jane's Walk!  In the spirit of Jane Jacobs, get out and explore your neighborhood.
http://janeswalk.net/walks/view/houses_against_the_grain/

TOUR MAP

On-Site Sketching: The University: Pavilion IV III II I

Sketches made on the Lawn at the University of Virginia, Fall Semester 2011. My goal is to draw the Pavilions of the Academical Village in front elevation, focusing on Proportion.


The weather is nice again and sketching on the Lawn has resumed Thursdays at 3:30. Drawing Pavilions V, VI, VII.  If you want to draw, you are welcome!

Breakfast Club (& Sketching) on The Lawn

My first entree to a Lawn Room.

The Breakfast Club: boys, bagels, beer.

Right, The standard gear for journeys to and from the community bathroom, by way of the arcade, and the standard issue rocking chair which suited me just fine.
Left, the list of this room's tenants by year - all the way back to 1895.

There is an abbreviated bathroom in one corner and an abbreviated kitchen in another, the bedroom and study share a corner, and the living room centers around a handmade door table. The large flatscreen sits on the fireplace mantel. Just as Jefferson envisioned.

And now we get to work, drawing Pavilion III, using our simple tools for gauging proportion.

Our friend, Marina, is engrossed in giving a trial tour.  She is one of 300-400 hopefuls to try out and one of about 60 to be called back for an interview. When she passes the interview, she'll be one of a select group or official U.Va. tour guides. 

The Lawn must be mowed. And we find ourselves adjusting our seats to avoid being mowed.

On-Site Sketching: The University: Pavilion II

Another overcast day, mostly, to complete the drawing of Pavilion II began last week.  One of the delights in sketching at this particular World Heritage Site is the peripheral community that comes and goes throughout the morning - students, families, tourists, tourists from different countries, student tour guides practicing their tourspeak (as pictured above.)

The sun breaks through the clouds triumphally...and it gets a lot hotter and harder to see...but I finish the drawing.

On-Site Sketching: The University: Pavilion II

Lucky to have an overcast day while drawing Pavilion II as the sun is just above its pediment, on the other side of the clouds.


We are focusing on drawing correct proportion from sight, occasionally using our pencils as perspectival measuring sticks and squinting like architectural sketchers do. It will be interesting to see, when completed in the same drawing language, the differences and similarities between the ten unique pavilions.


This morning, while walking up through the range gardens, I approached the lawn through a passage between student rooms and found myself at odds with the column - only one in the long colonnade that frames the lawn, connects the pavilions, and provides covered passage along rooms - that sat in the middle of my view toward the lawn.  Instead of framing this entrance opening between two columns, one column bisects it.  I caught a hint that this is one of Jefferson's moves at breaking the rules of classicism in its own language.

On-Site Sketching: The University: Pavilion I

Ten Pavilions are interpersed among the student rooms on the Lawn, punctuating the single-story colonnade with classrooms, housing for professors and houses for various university clubs. Jefferson solicited designs from Capitol architects William Thornton and Benjamin Latrobe for the Pavilions, each a different temple front intended to teach the Orders, and masterfully composed these architectural "specimens" into a living and learning environment reminiscent of the Greek agora.

What we wish is that these pavilions, as they will show themselves above the dormitories, shall be models of taste and good architecture, and of a variety of appearance, no two alike, so as to serve as specimens for the architectural lecturer. Will you set your imagination to work, and sketch some designs for us, no matter how loosely with the pen, without the trouble of referring to scale or rule, for we want nothing but the outline of the architecture, as the internal must be arranged according to local convenience? A few sketches, such as may not take you a minute, will greatly oblige us.      —Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Thornton, 1817

Having only a cursory knowledge of the Classical Orders, I thought if fitting to channel my desire for in-place sketching toward the lawn, with the aim to sketch each of the Pavilions and come to know these temples in their variations. A weekly tradition.