{"id":4369,"date":"2026-01-16T09:16:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T14:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/?p=4369"},"modified":"2026-01-21T20:09:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T01:09:13","slug":"sketch-of-the-week-fallingwater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2026\/01\/sketch-of-the-week-fallingwater\/","title":{"rendered":"A week of falling water (Sketches of the Week for Week 2 of 2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A couple week’s back we visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater<\/a>, a really lovely building that perfectly illustrates why you probably shouldn’t build a poured-concrete modernist gem over an active river in a region of the country that has multiple freeze-thaw cycles each year. Here is the current state of the house (we were there on the absolute final day before they close for six months of renovations\/restorations):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"My<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So, on the one hand, a bummer to go to an architectural gem and not be able to see it. On the other, I really loved seeing Fallingwater in situ <\/em>in person (context: my father was trained as an architect, my mother as a painter and lithographer; I grew up with a lot of art and in a lot of museums and a lot of opinions about architecture and design and construction ad nauseam<\/em>). I especially loved the tension between this balanced, monumental, (in)famous building and this towering unnamed pine tree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent the next week drawing it, compositing my photo and several existing professional shots of the building, so I could have untented Fallingwater in its place among the trees, scaled as I saw it at the end of December 2025. The results were five sketches: Fallingwater (i\u2013v)<\/em>. My wife and kids were divided and which attempt came out best. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My son insisted it was Fallingwater (iii)<\/em> (he couldn’t say why, but I think it’s because he was standing with me when I took the above pic, and liked how this sketch captures both cataracts and the pool between):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I preferred (iv), because it felt like I got the depth on the rocky outcropping right, and there was some stuff with line weight that worked out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And my wife and daughter chose (v), with my daughter specifically liking that you could glimpse the windows and underpinning structure better:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In retrospect, I agree with my wife and daughter: Fallingwater (v)<\/em> is best, but mostly because it makes the tree and the building equal protagonists in the scene<\/a>. Also, the rocky outcropping is pretty good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple week’s back we visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, a really lovely building that perfectly illustrates why you probably shouldn’t build a poured-concrete modernist gem over an active river in a region of the country that has multiple freeze-thaw cycles each year. Here is the current state of the house (we were there on … Continue reading “A week of falling water (Sketches of the Week for Week 2 of 2026)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_share_on_mastodon":"1"},"categories":[1021,1022],"tags":[1108,113,1026,1173,904,572,1025,1024,1027],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/a2mi.social\/@dave0\/115905199177302424","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4369"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4380,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369\/revisions\/4380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}