You guys, I know. It’s been a while. And I was really starting to feel like I was being withholding, but then I noticed a slew of blogs that started out something like, “Oh, I know I’m always apologizing for not posting anything in a while, but anyway, sorry for not posting anything in the while! But, you know. Holidays!” So you won’t hear it here. That’s my sterling guarantee.

Above are some trees and a monster’s bird head that I doodled at an exhibit of Dürer prints at the Clark. It happened a long time ago. Okay, so I might have some blogger’s guilt about not posting these more in-the-moment. You imaginary internet people and your insistence on timeliness! As I was saying, Andy Warner, Kate LaRocca,* Jon Fine and I took a day trip down to Williamstown, Massachusetts back in, I don’t know, November. We saw this lovely, lively show of the Northern Renaissance master’s woodblocks, and a few etchings. We also drove through some spectacular New England scenery, with billowing clouds and shafts of light dappling the hillsides. Yeah, that’s right. I said it. Landscapes!!

I’ve got another page from our drawing adventure that I might or might not post. It also occurred to me that this might qualify as a Drawing Adventure.

*Does anybody have some up to date internet location for her? I’m only finding broken links. <3

Well friends, it’s countdown to Escape from New York. I’m really sad to go. I love this place, and I love all my pals that live here. But I’m leaving this Saturday.

I’ve been meaning to show the page below for a long time. It’s from a few months back when I was fleshing out chapter one of Petrified Girlfriend (only available in the impossible-to-read-titled Oak & Linden – I’ll make an Etsy page or something when I move to Vermont if you’re interested in a copy, Blogiverse). You may recall that Caitlin and I stomped around the Museum of Natural History taking reference pictures for it. Well, a pivotal moment occurs in the Hall of Ocean Life, which has had a wonderful lighting effect ever since it was remodeled sometime this decade. The hall’s skylights, which were painted over in the let’s-paint-over-everything 1960s, are illuminated with the blue, shifting ripples that you see on the sand under the ocean water. It’s gorgeous. And it took me a while to figure out just how to depict it, as you can see. This objet d’art features some coffee stains by me and also one of my collaborator Caitlin Martin’s inimitable lists.

What an adventure my love dove/co-writer and I had at Natural History on Monday! That place is the best. We were researching for Petrified Girlfriend locations, she with her camera and I with my sketchbook. Mostly we she took pictures. I offended Caitlin’s sensibilities by making her take pictures that look terrible as photographs but are useful for aiding a drawing. So there we were, making tasteless images with flash reflections on glass and blown out light areas that served no purpose but reproducing the displays placed in front of us. Like a couple of tourists. In the dim exhibition halls the camera’s flash was too weak to capture the room and we didn’t have a tripod for some long exposures, so I dashed off a couple drawings to get down the two best spaces while Cait drew plants and animals.

This isn’t to say that Caitlin didn’t get some really cool shots – hell, any of em that she really set up totally beat my drawings. Like check this out (in a Frog Blog first – photography):

I’ve gotta say, though, the dinosaurs have stopped doing it for me. I think ever since they remodeled that whole floor. Maybe it’s just a coincidence and I got old at the same time that happened, but I’m thinking maybe all the clinical, modern glass, and the layout built around evolutionary lineage rather than dramatic impact had an effect. I mean, I’m glad they have the T-Rex standing properly and they’re doing more to teach evolution and all. I just think the ocean life redesign works better because it retains the mysterious cavern atmosphere that the older mammal exhibits still have – plus it has those cool aquatic sounds!

Anyhow, I’m glad I’m not Craig Thompson, and I don’t consider taking reference photos to be cheating. Cause if I was, it would take me a really long time to make a comic that takes place anywhere specific. And I wouldn’t get this snapshot:

Or this cover for Caitlin’s 1978 solo album, Amethyst:

You may have noticed that this and the last posts’ drawings are particularly sexual and wiener-oriented (I checked the spelling Cait, it is “ie,” not an exception to the rule – I <3 U), blame Alfred Kubin. A few weeks ago Caitlin and Danielle and I went to the Neue Gallerie and looked at a show of his drawings and watercolors. It had sort of hokey mood elements, like creepy silhouettes behind windows and a room with period artifacts and brooding German music, but this stuff actually did its part in adding to the atmosphere, especially because it was relegated mainly to the hall and away from most of the artwork. I had no idea the man existed until Danielle said we should go see the show. Exquisitely disturbed, monstrous stuff. Sex and death and terrible beasts and bleak landscapes.

And speaking of terrible beasts, you can bet this wang would have been longer if I had known from the beginning that this was a horse man.

Oh, bloggers. I’m ready to make the Portrait of the Week weekly again. As Caitlin has mentioned, I now have a mega-studio. She usually refers to it as The Master Studio. I came into some money, and I got a tabloid-sized scanner and a Wacom Cintiq, which is a monitor that you can draw on with a stylus. Both very nice. Also, she and I moved some things around, and now I’m comfortable with our workspace. So basically, things are moving again. Things are happening again.

Now, I think that these portraits could start to fall on a consistent day, don’t you? Like what about Mugshot Monday, or Famous Friday, or Celebrity Saturday? I like that last one because it’s only an aural alliteration, which is fun and funny. So probably I’ll start putting them up then.

Anyhow, Cait and Chadwick Matlin (“the staff reporter for The Big Money, Slate‘s business site, which will launch later this year” -from his Slate byline), and I went to the © Murakami show at the Brooklyn Museum recently and we had fun. So here he is with his mascot sprites, Kaikai and Kiki.

If only I lived in Canada, and I could pull down a sweet salary, health benefits, and pension for sitting at my drafting table, you know? I mean, I’ve been a good boy and done my work! Doesn’t that mean I should be making so much money?

I couldn’t resist posting this one last Met drawing. The museum closed before I “finished,” but I think it actually helped me not take the detail bidness too far. As they always said in foundation, work the whole page, so the drawing can be complete at any moment. I guess I’m not paying those student loans for nothing. OK, now I’ll shut up about money and post a picture:

Last Friday, McCool called me up and said we should go to Philly for our drawing adventure this week. It was fun, but after we took the Chinatown bus, got Tastykakes at Wawa, stopped for seriously beyond-street food falafel from a man in a Gypsy cart, walked by the awesome Philadelphia City Hall in the rain, and paid the $500 entrance fee at the Mutter Museum of Medical Oddities, it was already, like, 3:30. Weird, right? So, I only drew these two pages before they closed.

I don’t what to tell youse, the Internets, except that The Office finale was awesome, and so is River City Ransom.

Here’s another drawing from last week’s Met trip. These two statues are on either side of a wide entranceway of the European Sculpture courtyard where the Academy students make those really carefully rendered drawings of the statuary. I cheated them into some close interaction, changed the angles – you know. For kicks. For narrative. For love? Everyone who sees this says it’s a drawing of Girlf Caitlin and me.

This week, oh buddy, ol’ pal o’ mine Dan and I went to the Museum of Natural History. We looked at Teddy Roosevelt’s horse’s balls, and drew cartoony animals. We both felt very proud of ourselves when the day ended, and we’re intent on going on more drawing adventures. It’s like art school again, but without the stress! Also, I finished my sketchbook, so look out for a different page shape popping up soon. Very exciting, I know.

Here’s my best page: