My Crit with Zaha Hadid-

Strange morning. We all met at Piazza Navona to sketch and water color in the piazza for a couple hours. I dove into watercolor, though it was my first time and it was pretty rough. But i really enjoyed it. I listened to some tunes on my itouch and painted what my eyes were telling me. It didn't quite come across the same, but some what close.

Matt helped me for a while with tips and examples. His methods of watch and learn really help, literally showing me on the spot how i would do a wash or a value. I worked on both my subjects, narrowing down my focus, as well as my craft and wash with the brush. It was going fairly well, i was feeling it, and the group moved over to Piazza S. Maria della Pace for some new subjects.

I got some fresh water and squatted down on a curb to attempt the glowing facade of Santa Maria della Pace. It was tough and Matt helped me once again with the values; Dark is ok, i have to remember that. And to work from lightest to darkest.
He left me and i started a new facade of the street corner and the balcony. As i was focusing on the shading under the cornices, a woman peers over my shoulder to see what I'm working on. She asks me if i speak English and then begins to critique my painting, focusing on the arch i had drawn on the church. She asked (in a thick Italian accent of broken English), "Why draw the arch?" I was confused and caught off guard by a crit on a practice drawing. "Excuse me?" i said. "Where does that come from?" she asks again.

I stumbled to explain the development of the arch through Antiquity and Republican Rome, stretching my memory to all I'd learned in history and prep courses. She cut in to say, "NO, Even before Greek." I agreed with her, with little change of aggression on her half. She said she was an architect and she hated my drawing. Frustrated and still quite confused I said I was sorry, "I'm merely a student."

She pointed back to the arch on my page and asked why, and again i didn't know where to take it. Though there was a language barrier she seemed to know what she was talking at- more than i did or attempted to at least.

I tried asking her name. She was a dark middle-aged woman of a thick ethnicity and a mole by her nose. She was little too, only a little taller than i was squatting on the cobblestone. "Maria," she said her name was, and looked at her watch and asked if i wanted to grab a beer then realized it was too early for one and changed her mind. She said bye, tried talking about the painting again, said she was an architect again, said she still didn't like my attempt, said bye and left with a shrug down the cobblestone street.

I'd like to say that Maria and I had coffee instead and i discovered her to actually be Zaha Hadid in town for her MAXXI opening and she went on to offer me a job and career with her. But alas i was stunned by the little lady Maria and her architectural critique of my practice drawing and was left on the cobblestones in confusion.