Soya Hirano -- Some of my random drawings

I'm afraid that all of my drawings are unclear by pencils or/and color pencils and incomplete because I'm so slow at drawing.

No.1 (left), April 24th, Bath Abbey ...While having dinner in front of a cafe, Andrew and I enjoyed a view of this abbey. This is my first sketch in the trip.



No.2 (right), April 25th, A Taxi Running on Broad Street in Bath, Drawn While I was Sitting in Front of the Pub Named "The Slug and Lettuce" ...Btw, before the pub I enjoyed eating dinner and sketching the street and afterwards moved in the pub and had a first and last glass of a cocktail named Sex on the Beach with five students of Hiram College.

No.3 (left), April 26th, Tintern Abbey (Ruin) in Chepstow

...The left wall seems to incline to the right, but that's my technical mistake in drawing. I should have drawn the wall perpendicular to the bottom of the sketch page. The stone abbey had apparently cleaned of plants off the walls when our study abroad group visited because it looks different from paintings of it by Edward Dayes in 1794 and by Thomas Girtin about 1793.

No.4 (right), April 28th, Palladian (neo-classical) Bridge in Alexander Pope's Prior Park in Bath ...This bridge illustrates Alexander Pope's achievement of fitting a human architectural work into the environment of the forest, pond, and grassy slope. The neoclassic bridge idealizes the British aristocratic artist and writer's peaceful landscape of balance between nature and civilization. No gold or marble overwhelms the order, as Pope would wish.

No.5 (left), April 29th, A Corner of Keble College Made of Brick in the Victorian Architectural Style in Oxford ...Founded in 1870, the mosaic and polychromatic brickwork of the outer walls of Keble College (one independent educational institution of Oxford University) was designed by William Butterfield (1814-1900) and reflects a Christianity theme of exaltation to the heaven. I think, our tour guide said that John Ruskin (I'm not sure if it was Ruskin, though, but somebody did for sure) decried Butterfield's brickwork design, but many people still liked it. More information may be found on http://www.keble.ox.ac.uk/about/architecture. Due to my rough delineation of the building, I did not draw a correct number of the black squares on both sides of the triangular roofs. I am glad that I am not drawing this for a stringent architecture or drawing course that would dislike such inaccuracy.

No.6 (right), April 30th, Drawn from the Picture of William Morris' Medieval/Naturalist-Style Bedroom in a Pamphlet of Kelmscott Manor in Gloucestershire
...Reportedly Morris' second daughter May Morris (and maybe his wife Jane, too?) embroidered on the bed sheet and bed curtain, even though my drawing only shows a small part of her dedication for William's 60th birthday present. No pictures were allowed in the manor. I was a bit surprised by the fact that Jane Morris had a separate bedroom from her husband's, but our guide explained why briefly: her liaison with Dante G. Rossetti was no less shocking to her husband than her confession that she had never loved William Morris.

Cynthia Martin

We are almost reaching the end of out wonderful trip to England...This trip was as much fun as educational for me.

Everything started in Bath which is a very nice place which is a place which is neither totally city looking nor completely wild place. One of my favorite places we visited, was at Stourhead Garden. Stourhead is a 2650 acres of 18th century landscape garden, historic parkland, farmland and ancient woodland. It is a beautiful garden following a symmetrical and regular shape. This beauty makes the garden seem unreal and gives this mental image of the perfect garden that everyone would like to have in their backyard. In addition, even though a lot of people were walking around, it remains a very peaceful and quiet place where one can easily meditate or find a time for loneliness.

After 5 days in Bath, we headed to Oxford where it was a completely different environment, it was more like a town college. We have been able to visit the country home of William Morris, author of News from Nowhere and poet, craftsman and socialist. The house contains a collection of the possession and works of Morris and his associates, including furniture, textiles, carpets and ceramics. We could not take pictures inside of the house but I could tell you that it was a simple but very nice house, you could really have this warm feeling of being at home once inside. Moreover, there were a lot of curtains, cushion covers who were embroidered by Jane and May Morris, wife and daughter of William Morris and designed by William Morris himself. His design was mostly inspired from flowers, stream and meadow since we could observe the pale colors he would used such as pale green or blue background. That really gave the heaven-like feeling since I could imagine heaven to be filled with flowers of bright colors.

Finally, after 4 days in Oxford, we are in London, the big city of England. It is definitely a different surrounding, especially the architecture of certain buildings which is more modern. On the first day itself, Madhu, Sara, Molly, Maria and I went to see Big Ben and tower bridge at night and it was such a spectacular view. It was pretty awesome, I have seen these sites before but it was always during the day and I can assure you that it is worth going both during the day and at night as well. Moreover we have been visiting the St Paul's Cathedral from which we could have a panoramic view of England after walking about 300 stairs to the top of the dome. Also we visited the Tower of London where I have been able to see the crown jewels which was amazing and just make us dream about having one of these one day. :)

Matthew Shick

April 23rd is finally here! It seemed like it took forever to get here, but now that it is here I am very excited to see England. The first place we stayed at was Bath. There I had my first encounter with oh so famous fish and chips and English beer. I enjoyed the fish and chips, but I cant see my self eating them all the time because of how much grease is used to make them. As for the beer, it is served differently then back home. The beer is served at room temperature which at first I did not particularly like, but after awhile I enjoyed it very much. After leaving Bath we have moved on to Oxford, which is totally different than Bath in my opinion. Oxford is more of a college town which means the prices are much lower than e prices in Bath. Also I would say Oxford is more urbanized than Bath. After we leave Oxford we head to London for the rest of our trip. I have been anxiously waiting to see London because I think it will be the best part of the trip. Two reasons I cant wait to go to London is because there will be so much to do and see. One thing I hope I get to see while I am in London is a football game.

Roman Baths

At the Roman Baths

Sara Benedetto

So far we have had a wonderful, exhausting trip--in a good way! I've managed to find Starbucks' easily--in JFK, when we got to Bath, and once we arrived at Oxford today. The Starbucks siren calls out to me!! ;) .

The best parts of the trip for me have been Tintern Abbey, Stourhead and Glastonbury. On Monday we visited Tintern Abbey--the thing I was most excited to see when I saw the tentative itinerary months ago.
I read William Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" freshman year at Hiram and it has remained with me since. Wordsworth identifies some things that may be difficult for everyone to put into words. He visits the abbey to escape from the "civilized world." My interpretation of his work is that he not only found in nature a place to escape, but a spiritual experience, as well. I identified with this when I first read his work because I often spend time in nature to escape the world--to think, write, meditate, admire the beauty found in nature and simply be with myself. Being immersed in nature and, in a way, away from the world, allows me to feel like my most complete self, something I think Wordsworth may have been feeling as well when he visited Tintern Abbey.

At Tintern Abbey we talked about the way the grounds are taken care of, how it is not truly "natural." This relates to a text we read for class News from Nowhere. Tintern Abbey is supposed to be picturesque, but is actually partly artificial in its beauty. Is any nature not artifical or man altered in some way? In News from Nowhere Morris writes of a society that doesn't use all of it's land for things, but uses it simply for beauty. However, man still alters it to make it look how he wants, rather than simply letting it be "wild." This ties into a recurring theme that has come up in class discussions: What is wilderness? Does it truly exist? Some of the answers we have come up with is that humans imagine what wilderness is, but since it is something that is untouched by humanity once humans interact with land it is no longer wilderness. Whether or not Tintern Abbey is wild does not take away the elements of sublime found there. Not only the picture of the broken abbey against the fields and trees surrounding it, but the broken parts of the abbey contrasted against the larger part still standing, as well.

Though I enjoyed Tintern Abbey, I didn't have the same experience there that Wordsworth did. I felt more like this when I visited Stourhead and Glastonbury. Stourhead is a 2,000 acre estate of indescribable beauty. It was great walking through the garden, but the best part was when Erin and I climbed to see Apollo Tower. From there we had a great view of the path we'd walked--it was amazing. If only we'd known what was coming...later that day we went on the Glastonbury tour to see the remains of St. Michael's Chapel. I don't even want to tell you about the walk up there. Neverending steps, anyone? Everyone made it up though! A combination of sheer will and coffee (I'm speaking about me, of course ;) ). The view from the top made every step and sore muscle worth it. You could see the whole town from there, and being so high up was a strange feeling. There is something spiritual about being so high up and being able to see so much, and feel so small, and also about being in the presence of something so old with so much history. Many historical figures have allegedly been there in addition to millions of people overall. It's strange to think how many people have been there for different reasons, brought together by one thing, all connected in some small way.

Needless to say, I am enjoying the trip so far! I think everyone is. The group as a whole has been getting to know each other and so far this is a more than worthwhile experience. Still have time in Oxford and then London! AHHH! :)

On a slightly lighter note--Turkish coffee is good. ;) A bunch of us went to a Lebanese restaurant tonight. For those of you who might read this who love food, I have also had wonderful meals at a French restaurant, Indian, Japanese (Wagamama!) and English, of course. And plennntttyyyyy of coffee!

--Sara

Molly Taylor

This is one of the many views at the Stourhead Gardens. The Palladian Bridge (in front) is not accessible for visitors to walk on but only used for the effect of the water running thought it. The Pantheon is in the background.

This is me sitting in front of one of the Roman Baths. This is part of a natural hot spring that Bath is built upon.

Maria Sember

After our long, and exhausting flight to England we set our bags down and started wandering around the city. All we had was a map in our hands to direct us. Looking at the places we could go we decided to try and find the Sydney Gardens. With one destination in mind it shouldn't take that long....well in our case it took 7 hours to find! Despite the long trek we found some beautiful buildings, shops, museums and parks. Not to mention we also got to see a cricket game- we didn't understand how the game was played but it was interesting to watch. At the end of the day, well London time that is, we were very tired! Even though we had been up for more than 30 hours at this point we didn't regret taking that day to explore the city by ourselves. Within our group of 7 we learned a lot about the city and each other- no one can complain about that. As we headed back to the dormitories we were ready to sleep- everyone else seemed to have the same idea because most of us were asleep by 9pm. I am excited to see what else is in store for us in the coming days!

Paul Gaffney

After the minor chaos of two flights and two train trips my jet lag caught up to me with a vengeance once we checked into the YMCA at Bath. A short naps forestalled the worst, then our group splintered and scattered to explore central Bath, a very compact, busy maze of streets. Lisa Zamecnik and I speculated about whether we could see Prior Park, a Palladian mansion on a hill overlooking Bath. When the friendly man at reception suggested to Lisa that we could likely see Prior Park from a road up the hill called Camden Circle, seven of us walked the fifteen minutes up the steep Georgian slope through Bath’s parks and streets and it was well worth the effort. Even more memorable was our visit, on the way back down, of a little antique shop. An self-proclaimed “eighty-four-year-old Prussian” woman gave us an engaging, good-humoredly gruff tour of some of their treasures, including waistcoats, dresses, suits, and bonnets from Jane Austen’s time. She lectured us about handicraft and prodded us to move around in the tight space; “now you can say you’ve been poked by a Prussian,” she said. She insisted that Soya, Nicholas, and I each try on a Napoleon III army officer’s hat. She told us about her sister who lives in Carmel, California and her son who lives in New Zealand. Lovely.