Thursday 4-7-2013

1st layer

On Thursday we went to the Baslilca di San Clemente to draw.  It's not very noticeable from the outiside, but it's a pretty special church because it has 3 different level, because each of them were built over older churches.

The top most layer was built in the 14th century in the Byzantine style, the second was made in the 4th century and finally the last (Gollum's cave) was made in the 1st century.

P.S we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so I'm using images from google.

At first we stayed in the Byzantine layer (the current church) and drew some of it's features.

Quick gesture drawing

Detail of hanging lamp 

After that we went down stairs into the second layer, which was pretty impressive considering how old it was, because there were still old fresco images drawn on the walls and everything.

Then we went even deeper into the ground, it was very similar to the Paris catacombs (except for the dead people) where the place was just full of cool, stone tunnels.  There was even a natural spring underneath there, though the improved plumbing and drainage probably stops it from flooding as much.

After that we headed back upstairs and drew outside in the grass.  This time we were challenged to use our watercolour pencils to draw something around us.  I drew this fountain, where the pigeons were bathing.

Afterwards the teachers took us to a cool art deco restaurant for lunch.

Inside the restaurant

Posing with the flower 

More delicious pasta

"How many artists does it take to pay the bill?"  (You know I only make these kind of jokes if they're real).  Because all of us are artists who don't do maths anymore, that act dividing the bill between 14 people, became a serious case of high level maths...

Something else probably happened later that night, but I can't remember.  Probably involves eating and sleeping, you know normal human stuff.