Erasmus help to travel, live and discover a new place. My name is Kora Melisa and I decided to take part in Erasmus+ because I want to develop and I am not afraid to change something in my life. With this program, I visited many cities in Italy and became imbued with their culture and traditions. In my opinion, I could not miss this opportunity to explore and learn about new cultures and languages.

I stayed in Italy for 2 months in practice. Our place of residence was in Basilicata. Basilicata remains an edge almost undamaged by human intervention. The organization of the practice itself was at the highest level. We got up at sunrise to draw and see interesting color solutions. We did a huge amount of architectural sketches of Italian buildings and interior. Despite the number of hours allocated for plain air, we also visited other cities hidden from tourists, and we managed to fix these views on a sheet of paper with paintings.

Thanks to this practice I have learned the skills of using new material for myself, such as pastel, coal, mascara, watercolor. I learned new drawing techniques using materials I used, such as pencil, marker, watercolor brush. Inspired by the views of southern Italy, we painted from morning till night. Some days we allocated to general viewing of all works. During the general viewing, we commented on the work of our colleagues, thus we saw from the outside how our painting and sketching skills were improving.

Most of all, I was inspired by the small town of Diamante because of my access to the sea. Diamante is a city of wall painting, in southern Italy. Thanks to wall painting there was more motivation to create and write paintings in this city.

Despite not always welcoming weather, we still managed to enjoy the views and seal them. When I arrived home I was impressed by this practice organized by Erasmus and my BSA university. This is an unforgettable experience and I want to express my great gratitude to all the education for this opportunity!

Melisa Kreslova