Urban Sketching Part 4: Uppsala, Sweden

This is Part 4 (and final) in my Urban Sketches series: Uppsala, Sweden
Part 1: Chicago Faces
Part 2: St. Petersburg, Russia
Part 3: Jyväskylä, Finland

The final leg of my 1997 trip was to travel to Uppsala University in Sweden to present this paper. First I had to get there from Finland, a journey I had left unplanned. My friend Mari advised me that I would have lots of fun taking the overnight ferry from Helsinki to Stockholm. She was right; it was great food, an interesting look at how high-roller Scandinavians take their vacations, and good opportunities for sketching.

I don't recall the circumstances of this sketch, but I'm pleased with this sketch of a nicely tailored gentleman.
	I'm pleased with how I captured this smoker's relaxed posture while reading his book. I had a nice long chat with the fellow after I showed him the sketch. His name is Ingo Petry and is a composer and recording engineer.
One of my best executions, and also an example of how much detail goes into rendering hair.
	At this point I am already at the conference in Uppsala, having taken a train from Stockholm, and am sketching other participants. This sketch is of Christina Anagnostopoulou of Greece. While I overshot the length of her face by quite a bit, I still like this sketch.
Daniel Levitin of the US.
	Jörg Langner of (I believe) Germany.
After dinner the final night of the conference, a group of us including Girilel Baars of Sweden and Helga Gudmundsdottir of Iceland retreated to a bar, where Girilel was playing a gig that night. The writing on the sketch is Girilel's.
	My final sketches occurred on the train from Uppsala to catch my flight home from Stockholm. I remember the least about these sketches except that it was a hot sunny day, and this is a guy on the train.
Man trying his best to catch a nap in the heat.
	A young blonde woman.
Although a misplaced line added a few years to this young woman's age, I'm pleased with the details of the woman's outfit, and how it captures the wilting heat of that day.

I hope you enjoyed these sketches. See my sketches gallery for the rest of my drawings from this trip.

Urban Sketching Part 3: Jyväskylä, Finland

This is Part 3 in my Urban Sketches series: Jyväskylä, Finland
Part 1: Chicago Faces
Part 2: St. Petersburg, Russia
Part 4: Uppsala, Sweden

Part two of my 1997 trip, to travel to University of Jyväskylä (prounced 'gee-VASS-cya-luh') to give a presentation to the Music Department, produced a lot of sketches. The train trip on the way up there from Helsinki was full of lots of families traveling for their summer holiday and it was a gorgeous sunny day.

An unusual character wearing the t-shirt for a Finnish Football team (that's US football, not soccer).
	Sketched on the train from Helsinki. Once I botched this guy's eyeglasses, this turned into a cartoon, but I still like this picture.
Another train sketch. This mother reading to her child was actually a quite young woman, but a few botched lines aged her by 15 years and put on 25 pounds. (As my friend Mari told me, "the same is true whenever we put on makeup".) Usually I sketch inconspicuously, but in this case I was pretty overt about it since it was just me and the two of them in a passenger compartment. At the end, I felt compelled to show the picture, which I preceded by an explanation that I did a poor job and I didn't really think she looked like that. But I think she didn't understand my English so I got a blank stare.
	My first night in Jyväskylä I stayed in University guest housing and I was on my own, so I wandered into town. I found a bar where I made sketches of three students. This one had a confident smirk which I captured only semi-successfully.
Another student in the bar. I remember thinking he looked a lot like Mike Meyers' 'Austin Powers' which had just come out that summer in the US, but was probably unknown in Finland still.
	Another student in the bar. Notice the thing under his nose; that's called a philtral dimple. But when I showed them my sketches, the one in the beret pointed at it and laughed. I guess he thought it looked like his nose was running.
The evening after my presentation, my host Petri Toiviainen inited me to his summer home. He, his son and I enjoyed a hot sauna by their lake. Although it was well into the night, it was daylight out because of their land-of-the-midnight-sun latitude. We baked to unbelievably high temperatures, swatted ourselves with twigs, and jumped into the icy lake. I also learned about the mystical nature of the sauna, and also the correct pronounciation, which is "SOW-nuh."
	This was on the train back to Helsinki. This guy was kind of an Elvis/tough guy who was making himself the center of attention in the dining car. He seemed fairly harmless, although he did whip out a switchblade and started doing tricks with it. I'm pleased with the way this sketch caught his looks and self-styled coolness. His response to the picture was ambivalent, but he did ask if he could keep the picture. He declined to give an address for me to send a copy, but he signed his name himself ('suomesta' means 'from Finland').
I'm very pleased with the way I caught the hunched-over attention this woman was paying to her book, with minimal use of lines. Her name is Simi Kouri, and she was in the dining car with me and Vesa Attonen.

See my sketches gallery for the rest of my drawings from this trip.