Rynok Square | L’viv, Ukraine | 22 October 2008
I had the fortune of taking part in a design studio in which the building site was in the Ukrainian city of L’viv. As a added bonus, several of us in the studio took part in a nine-day trip to L’viv and its environs. Close to the Polish border, L’viv reminded me a lot of Vienna (Austria, that is. The Virginia version pales in comparison).
Our tour included visiting villages nearby, taking in the veritable multicultural heritage of the area. Polish Catholics, Jews, and Ukrainian Orthodox peoples lived together prior to World War II. It was pretty haunting to see architectural cultural remnants such as this masonry synagogue in the nearby town of Zhovkva:
When we weren’t visiting older historical sites, we had some free time to take in more pedestrian sites. We would often have time off between morning workshop sessions and the afternoon ones, so we’d head off to Rynok Square to kill a couple hours. It’s a main tourist destination with shops, restaurants, and bars surrounding a campanile of sorts.
This tower is a good climb up, but the views were spectacular. From there, one could have a 360 degree view of the entire city. You can easily see the older, centralized, medieval city, and the Soviet-era concrete bloc buildings as well.
I had started a sketch up here, but was unable to finish it until recently. I had outlined what I had wanted to capture and had taken a picture to eventually get back to it. Four years later, I did. I sketched a 11″ x 9″ rooftop view from the tower and then doubled its height to add in the friendly google-blue sky and hot air balloons. One day I’ll draw better hot air balloons like Ralph Erskine did here at his Newcastle office.
It’s a collage of sorts and a very simple one at that. The entire image is 11″ x 18″ and I’ve got it printed as a canvas. The intent with the colors was to use complimentary colors to create something balanced. This sounds nuanced, but really I’ve done it for awhile. I just wanted to make something pleasant.
Now to finally get my Etsy store up and running…