DISEGNARE & FARE
A HANDS-ON SKETCHING WORKSHOP
WITH SIMO CAPECCHI, SEPTEMBER 2019
This wasn’t your typical drawing and painting workshop, focused on honing one’s artistic skills and learning new techniques under the tutelage of a maestra in a stunning location in Italy. But it was that and more!
Disegnare e Fare, which literally translates to drawing and making, was a workshop dedicated to sketchers and artists who wanted to go beyond observation and get their hands dirty, to architects who wanted to practice drawing from life as well as investigate, and learn the techniques used to construct the buildings surrounding them, and to travellers who were seeking a deeper relationship with and knowledge of the unique characteristics and activities of a special place like the Valle d’Itria.
This 4-day course in the Valle d’Itria focused on and celebrated the unique characteristics and activities around the medieval town of Ceglie Messapica (Ceglie), located in the Valle d’Itria area of the southern Italian region of Puglia. An unmistakable feature of the area is stone and the ingenious ways it has been used, from the dry-stone walls lining the roads to the trullo, the signature building type of the region. September is the month of the vendemmia (wine making) and almond harvesting so those two activities were included in the workshop. Ceglie is especially famous for its almonds and the local biscotto cegliese, a delicious biscuit made with all local ingredients, which we made (and drew) the final day.
An excellent group of 10 participants from 5 countries made this a rich, enjoyable experience.
INTRODUCTION
If I listen I forget, if I draw I remember, if I do I learn
Drawing from life, or observational drawing, is a contemplative activity, a sort of meditation or an act of love towards something that strikes us or something that we want to preserve memory of. Time stops when we draw. For Simo, drawing people on the move or working, explaining or telling their activities, processes, recipes, is a way to free herself from the purely contemplative act and to create a reportage both with images and words that will be shared.
By doing things with our hands, through immersion and experiential learning, we engage and experience our surroundings, both natural and built, at a deeper, more visceral level. This is how Amanda prefers to learn about and share the architectural heritage, agricultural practices, and culinary traditions of the place where she has chosen to live.
After many workshops of only sketching (Simo) and only building (Amanda), we decided to combine these two activities that we find so rewarding and regenerating, as a pause and antidote to the digital and virtual universe, to which despite our best intentions, we dedicate so much time.
Collaborating with a local chef and stone mason, we have organized a workshop dedicated to activities and a place we are passionate about. The goal is to offer participants not only a creative and inspiration space to sketch, but a unique experience of the Valle d’Itria that ultimately leads to a deeper understanding, appreciation, and respect for the history, place, and people of the area.
With Simo the participants will experiment with watercolor and landscape during a vernacular architecture walk (through mini sketches and a fine-tuned Valle d’Itria color pallette); drawing as reportage to record nomenclature, tools and phases of dry stone construction (with pen and soluble ink); urban sketching in the town of Ceglie, with particular attention to contrasts and shadows in a “white city” (with watercolor), and the design of culinary recipe book, including live reportage and illustration (pen, watercolor, colored pencils or acrylic).
Simo Capecchi studied Architecture in Venice and completed her PhD degree at the University of Naples (Italy) in Architectural Drawing but she prefers to draw and work as an illustrator. Simo has lectured and lead free-hand drawing courses for ten years at the Architecture Faculty of the University of Naples. She has been an instructor in many international Urban Sketchers Symposiums around the world since their foundation. In the last 10 years she has organized several Urban Sketchers Workshops in Naples, Ischia and Volterra (Tuscany). She likes to draw on location, reporting people’s activities live. In 2018 she published “Il San Carlo dietro le quinte”, a sketched reportage on San Carlo Opera Theatre in Naples, backstage. Since 2015 she is the back page columnist on the italian travel magazine “DOVE” (Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera). Puglia’s dry stone constructions has been her first architectural love, explored as a child when she used to spend vacations in this region with her family. Simo is the artist who will be leading the sketching portions of the workshop. Meet Simo in this video. See her works: in English on Urban Sketchers, Portfolio on Flickr, news on Facebook, and on Instagram.
Amanda Roelle in 2012 left her life working full time as a restoration architect on the historic masonry high-rises of Chicago and now lives in a trullo in Ceglie (with summers working in Chicago). She developed A Spasso Con Un Architetto as an architectural educational initiative for exploration and engagement with the vernacular architecture of the Valle d’Itria, and founded Archistrati, an architecture and sustainability consulting firm (www.archistrati.com). Intrigued and inspired by different ways of living on the planet, Amanda has travelled extensively. She has collaborated on sustainable building, community development, and small-scale agriculture projects in the U.S., Europe, Southeast Asia, Oceania, and West Africa. She never ceases to be amazed by our individual and collective creativity, and the endurance of the human spirit. She is thrilled to be sharing the architecture of the trulli and the beauty of Puglia during the workshop. Amanda Roelle is the overall coordinator for the workshop.As well as teaching bookbinding, Amanda will lead the excursions and walks around the area. www.amandaroelle.com