Representing my Hometown

Today was a mellow day. In the morning, I went to the Palatine Gallery for a field trip with my Museology class. It was pouring, which made for pretty skies as pictured below (right outside the Palazzo Pitti). 

The Palatine Gallery had a fabulous collection of artwork including pieces by Caravaggio, Botticelli, Raffaelo, etc. but the way the museum was set up was overwhelming. In each room, there must have been at least 20 or 30 paintings and instead of having them all at eye level, some were higher or lower than others. To make matters worse, the lighting was horrible so you could hardly see the paintings at the top. To make the museum even more overwhelming, the walls had patterned wall paper and the ceilings all had busy frescoes like the one below. 

It was interesting, however, because that is how the artwork would have been displayed in the Medici family's palace. After the field trip (which ran over time-wise), I went back home to take a nap and ended up sleeping until the early evening! Oops! I felt well rested and the studio closes early on Fridays, so I decided to have a quiet night in and sketch.. with snacks of course! Pictured below is the design for my lid to my ceramics container, representing North America (I chose to represent my hometown with the sun and waves). 

Here's a super rough sketch of yet another animal I will be drawing on my ceramics container. This horse will represent Europe. I also began to sketch the elephant to represent Asia. Now all that's left is the monkey to represent Africa, and then I will be able to work on my container. 

Tomorrow will have to be another day at the studio to hollow out my rhino, work on my container, and work on my vase.... 

Ciao for now!