I arrived back home in Wauwatosa two nights ago, via Chicago and Frankfurt again (but not in that order, thankfully). While in Vienna, I was able to do a lot of drawing and watercolors in my little sketchbook, which graciously just fit in the pocket of my winter coat, like a large spoonful of mashed potatoes into an open mouth, buttery and warm. My drawings on this trip were for the most part divided into three categories: architectural, sketches of my fellow students, and studies from existing artwork in museums or public.

Architectural:

• The entrance rotunda to the Kunsthistorisches (Historical Art) Museum (Museum). One of my roommates, Paul, took 360 deg. pictures of the space, and will be uploading them to his website soon. I’ll provide a link when that happens. Here is my sketch of the rotunda:It’s in Micron .03mm pen and pretty clearly unfinished, but gives some sense of the scale of the interior. It’s so large that it was hard to fit that much into my sketchbook and keep a consistent perspective.

• Otto Wagner’s Stadtbahn (Subway) Entrance Pavilion. Wagner was a prominent Viennese architect in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This building is a pretty good example of Viennese Secession-style architecture, an artistic movement around the turn of the century that was one of the first (in Vienna, anyway) to break away from strong historicism. Here is my sketch:Also in pen, I think .03mm again. The people in the lower left were four of my group members, and should serve to give you a sense of the size of the building.

• Columnar sculpture at the Schloss Belvedere (Belvedere Palace). These are pretty Classical (Roman) figures that functionally act as supports for the building, something that’s reflected in the poses of the figures, struggling to hold up the weight of the structure (and, one would assume, the immense wealth of the Belvedere family). Here’s my sketch:As you can see, dude’s holding it up pretty well.

• In Café Central. As I recall, I had a melange (similar to a cappuccino) and a piece of cake. Wikipedia also tells me that Melange is the “name of the fictional drug central to the Dune series of science fiction novels.” This drawing serves as a pretty good segue into the section of people, since you can see Jon and Paul here.Here also begin a bunch of watercolors, which is what my sketchbook was designed for.

People:

• The first day everyone arrived, a few of us went to Coffee Shop Company (the Viennese Starbucks, basically) to email our safe arrivals to our loved ones overseas. I took the opportunity to do some drawing. Here are Jon, Naomi, and Hannah Goodwin (l-r) on laptops:

• This was a pretty quick sketch, but is helpful in that it shows everyone in our group (except for me). We were sitting, exhausted after a tour of the MAK (Museum of Applied Arts). Noelia is crossed out because she got up and left while I was in the middle of the drawing. I felt a little bad about it afterwards.

• Sketches at dinner one night: these include Kai (our instructor), Jon, Hannah Robinson, and Paul. If I were to grade myself on the representativity of each, it would be as follows: B, C, C+, A- (l-r).

• A quick sketch at the Kärntner/American Bar. Drinks here were ungodly expensive, so I found something else to occupy my time: drawing other people.In all, that’s about everyone in our group, some in more exquisitely rendered detail than others. I was also fortunate to collect some of their artwork in my sketchbook, so I’ll post that another time.

Studies:

• These seem to be what I focused most of my time and energy on. This first one was from the Kunsthistorisches Museum. I didn’t catch the name or sculptor, but it’s right at the head of the stairs after the entrance, displayed very prominently. In it, some dude with a club is choking and beating a half-horse half-man to death. Pretty badass.

• Portrait of Arthur Roessler by Egon Schiele (1910). Schiele was one of the later members of the Viennese Secession and Jugendstil, and in my opinion has the most distinctive and compelling painting style. The fact that he died when he was only 28, the same year he was replaced Gustav Klimt as Vienna’s leading artist, probably only served to further his popularity/scandalousness. In the sketch below, the quotation reads: “Egon Schiele was arrested and jailed for three days in St. Pölten for the distribution of immoral drawings.”

• Self Portrait with Raised Bare Shoulder (Schiele, 1912). This dude again. Even more so than others, Schiele loved painting himself. There are dozens, if not hundreds of self portraits he did, but this was my favorite from the Leopold Museum.

• Lissy im Café (Karl Hubboch, 1931). I hadn’t heard of Hubboch before, but Lissy caught my eyes in a way that no woman before had. By which I mean a very creepy, predatory sort of way. The funniest part of this one is that a couple of days later, in the American Bar, we saw a woman that strongly resembled Lissy, but with black hair. Fortunately she was sitting much closer to Jon than to myself.

Well, those are the drawings that I was happiest with. There are, of course, more, and a slew of photos that I may or may not get around to posting. I’d love to return to Vienna someday, sketchbook in hand.

In other news, on Saturday the 20th I’m leaving for New Zealand to go hiking with my girlfriend and her family. I’ll be there until early January, when I return directly to Minnesota. Hopefully, as with Vienna, I’ll have a lot of drawings to put up once I make my way to Northfield.