Two weeks ago today, I took the train from Toronto to New York City. We waited for quite a while at the border crossing (near Niagara Falls), where US Customs Agents boarded the train to check the customs declarations and whatnot of all the passengers. My agent, Subrayn (name changed to protect the innocent) spent about 30 seconds on me, a US citizen, but considerably longer on the guy sitting in front of me. He (the passenger) seemed a little unclear on how long he was staying in the US, and what he would be doing for said amount of time.

God bless America!

And here’s another drawing I did on my trip. Although I drew this on the flight from Minneapolis to Charlotte (en route to Toronto), it was inspired by a man I saw in New Zealand (either at Christchurch or Auckland’s airport), whom I dubbed an “artificially wide man.” I believe you’ll see why.

Until next time, kids and (anthropomorphic, computer-using) kittens!

Sorry, this isn’t a new true story (though I’ve got a few ideas in the works). Rather, this is just another random drawing I did the other day.

Anyway, it’s a turtle with a baseball stadium on its back. Sharpie again (“Ultra-Fine” and “Fine”) this time around. Not sure where the idea came from, or just where in the hell this turtle thinks he’s going.

In other news, I’ll be flying to Toronto on Sunday for two weeks of Canadian and East Coast (New York, Cape Cod) vacationing. I’ll try to keep updating. Expect a couple of true stories out of this trip!

My my my. Without too much to say, I would like to apologize for not updating in the last month. It’s been a busy time. Here’s a drawing from a weekend I spent in Chicago two and a half weeks ago. You may recognize the sculpture as Cloud Gate (affectionately, “The Bean”). It’s an unfinished drawing, which will be a recurring theme in the next few posts.

This is somewhat old news and probably not very exciting for most people, unless you watch the American sitcom The Office avidly. While in O’Hare International Airport in Chicago a few weeks ago, preparing to leave for New Zealand (via L.A.), my plane was a little delayed coming in. This wasn’t entirely unexpected, as it had started snowing in Chicago that afternoon. I was flying with United, and my flight was coming in from L.A. It landed, and as the passengers were coming out of the gate, I saw for one brief moment, a familiar face. It was this man:

Ok. I clearly didn’t take this picture, but it’s true. I saw Stanley from The Office in O’Hare that day. I even checked Leslie out on Wikipedia and found out that he’s from Chicago, so it’s not that unlikely, seeing as The Office is filmed in L.A. In conclusion, it was magical. It was everything a boy could wish for. I think I can die happy.

In other news, I decided to start writing only posts about celebrity gossip.

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.

The most disappointing thing about Austria (and possibly all of Europe) is, hands down, the fact that whipped cream is not sweet like in America. I’m having a hot chocolate right now and while the drink is delicious, I threw up a little bit in my mouth when I had the whipped cream. But it has overall been a good trip so far…

Anyway, a lot has happened since I wrote a week-ish ago. My Dad and I visited Chicago and took a few obligatory Bean pictures, and went into the Art Institute. I flew to Vienna via Frankfurt. Since then? It’s been art museum after art museum after hot chocolate. Vienna is all about historic elements in their buildings. I breathe an audible sigh of relief upon entering a building designed after World War II. This picture is of an entrance to a parking garage, to give you a sense of the decoration everywhere.

In the room that I’m staying in, there is this drawing of a cat:The Parliament building in Vienna is undergoing renovations, and for some reason there’s a decent-sized house perched on top of it. It’s either for the workers, or it’s an artistic intervention:

More to come soon, I promise!

I’m leaving in a little over an hour for Chicago, where I’ll spend most of the day with my Dad and brother before I fly to Frankfurt tonight, and after a short layover, Vienna. I’ll be studying Adolf Loos, an influential architect and architectural/social critic of the early 20th century. I also hope to be putting pictures up pretty regularly, but I’m not sure what access to the Internet I’ll have over in Europe. If there isn’t much, expect a plethora of material once I return on the 15th.

Bis bald (see you soon)!