M. Scott Woodruff, Palazzo Strozzi

Artist: M. Scott Woodruff
Title: Palazzo Strozzi
Medium: Pencil, felt-tip pen, white gel pen, inkwash
Unframed Dimensions: 18 x 24 inches
Framed Dimensions: 21 x 27 inches
Price: $1175
Artist Statement: My work in architectural communication begins with a simple conviction: Drawing is not a gift reserved for a select few, but rather a skill that can be cultivated through attention, practice, and exercises that build confidence. In teaching, I aim not to sort students by perceived talent, but to help them discover ways of seeing and representing architecture with clarity and feeling. For that reason, I draw inspiration from the Analytique tradition of the Beaux-Arts, which encourages both precision and expressive interpretation. The three drawings presented here reflect the principles I try to convey in both teaching and practice. They are hand-drawn. My technique approaches the edge of exhaustive precision while still allowing the humanity of presence, character, and essential experience to shine through. A hard-lined drawing can lack warmth, while a freehand drawing is less formal and therefore more approachable. In it, one can see the mistakes, and those mistakes invite viewers of any skill level into it by saying, “You are welcome here.” Architectural drawings of this sort should say only what is necessary. I tell my students to say it clearly, say it beautifully, and say it once. That may mean showing only half of the facade and half of the section, isolating an enlarged fragment, or pulling a structure apart to reveal what cannot otherwise be seen. Each composition is an attempt to convey the feeling, experience, and character of the subject as I encountered it. 

Palazzo Strozzi centers on the experience of its interior court, yet its monumental street presence can make it difficult to reconcile the encapsulating intimacy of the courtyard with the scale of the exterior. This drawing seeks to hold those two conditions together. 

Artist Bio: M. Scott Woodruff describes himself as a Philocolist—a lover of all things timeless and beautiful. His manner of celebrating this identity is to seek after and capture the best that life has to offer an artist. Woodruff initially aspired to become a full-time artist, but upon the threat of having his fingers broken if he tried, he found architecture, a parallel creative field. Happily, hand-drawing remained central to his practice of architecture, providing an enduring outlet for direct observation and artistic expression. 

After retiring from architectural practice, Woodruff followed his first love and began working as an artist. Since then, he has participated in art competitions in Logan, Brigham City, Ogden, and Midway. His work has received notable recognition, including first place in the R.A.M.P. It Up Plein Air competition presented by Weber County, and the Eccles Fine Arts Center in Ogden, for The Last Portrait (felt-tip pen and ink wash, 18” x 24”). He also received Best of Show at Art on Main in Brigham City, Utah, for The Three Witnesses (felt-tip pen, markers, and colored pencil, 18” x 24”).
The architectural community recaptured him in 2024, when he was offered a position as adjunct faculty to accompany architecture students from the University of Utah to Italy. There he lived in Tuscany for three months, sketching daily and teaching Architectural Communications. He returned to Italy for Fall 2025. Now, Scott continues to teach at the University of Utah and will begin teaching at Utah Valley University this coming year.

A pen-and-paper artist from the beginning, he continues to work primarily in that tradition, complemented by ink wash and watercolor. He shares his passion through teaching and being an active participant in the artistic community.