Montana State’s Christopher Livingston earns international illustration award

BOZEMAN - The first time Christopher Livingston's architectural sketch spilled from one notebook page onto the next, he felt like he had just broken a law.

It gave him a small thrill to stumble upon a new drawing method several years ago while trying to sketch a tower in its entirety in Verona, Italy, he said. After this lightbulb moment, Livingston's sketches tested the limits of architectural illustration - they stretched as long as 25 feet and required him to spend days rotating between different positions around buildings to capture them from every angle. His work earned international recognition; Livingston's tower sketch won Observational Best of Show from the American Society of Architectural Illustrators in 2020.

This summer, the professor in the School of Architecture at Montana State University added another ASAI award to his collection. He was one of several artists to receive an Observational Award of Excellence for his panoramic illustration of the Millennium Bridge in London. The piece was also a finalist in the travel sketch category of the international Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition.

Livingston credits Henry Sorenson, his former colleague in the College of Arts and Architecture who died in 2023, with his success in the competition. He said Sorenson consistently encouraged him to submit work and believed in the quality of that work, making each award Livingston has won since Sorenson's passing that much more meaningful.

"If it wasn't for his persistence at the time, I would still be sitting here today with piles of drawings, doing nothing with them," Livingston said.

Livingston's Millennium Bridge illustration is a snippet of a 25-foot piece he created during a sabbatical in 2024. For hours, he took notes on the 11 positions around the bridge that would best immerse viewers in the bustling cityscape. Livingston said his family often teases him for "setting up an office" outdoors while sketching on vacations.

As he drew, children peered over his shoulder, and tourists returned hours later to ask him about his progress. He carved out various perspectives of the scene in light pencil first, then filled in textural detail and shadows for complex structures, such as the St. Paul's Cathedral dome emerging from one end of the bridge.

"Drawing isn't this perfect thing," he said. "It's this idea about the way you see the world, and the world is always changing. You're just trying to capture the reality of being in that place at that time."

Transitioning between a building's small details, its "big picture," then back again, is an architectural skill he passes on to MSU students in his studio classes as they prepare to graduate and join a firm. Livingston, who spent 15 years in residential and commercial architecture prior to teaching at MSU, said it is important in the field to be acutely aware of details while also examining buildings within the context of their environment, meaning how people experience the space.

"Chris taught me the importance of looking at every detail: each brick, window frame and even the person walking into the building," said Caleb Beck, a master's architecture student from Great Falls, who took a field sketching class from Livingston in fall 2025. "They all tell a story about the design and its users. Having such a close connection to your surroundings brings a new level of respect for everything around you."

Each week during the field sketching course, students selected a building on campus to draw, then shared their work with the class at the end of the week.

One frigid day, Beck carved out the shape of Leon Johnson Hall in a sketchbook while sitting outside before taking a photo and finishing the drawing in the warmth of a nearby building. With his eye for detail honed over many years, Livingston happened to walk by and look at Beck's sketch, noticing immediately that it had been drawn from a photo and not from observation. This sparked a discussion between professor and student about the accuracy of the human eye compared to a modern-day camera. Newly inspired, Beck said he restarted the drawing on a warmer day and created a more detailed, final illustration.

Livingston will teach a new observational sketching class for master's students this fall. They will explore building elevations, perspectives and multi-building panoramas of structures across campus and beyond.

"When our students learn from award-winning architects, they are inspired to create work that pushes the boundaries of what they previously thought was possible," said Brian Kelly, director of the School of Architecture. "Chris' illustrations serve to demonstrate his commitment to excellence through recognition in national awards programs like the ASAI and Krob competitions."