Fishing Boats

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The above slideshow are of fishing boats from Santa Cruz and Monterey, California. They are watercolors with sumi ink on 5×7 inch watercolor paper for our project called The Brighton Beach Memory Exchange in Brooklyn, New York’s Brighton Beach neighborhood. You can check out our project called Моя Америка (My America) by clicking on the link. The pictures were given to my mother for Mother’s Day on her recent visit to New York.

Vladimir and Otar

The above two images are sumi ink paintings of the residents of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn that I met while working on our project Моя Америка (My America). The project is about people from the republics of the former Soviet Union who live in New York City. Meeting these two guys was one of the high points of the project.

Meyer Lemons Madness

Of course most of you know I used to work for Chez Panisse and I like cooking as much as I like making art. Here’s a drawing exercise while I am working on some illustration work for a new farmers market opening in the Uptown District of Oakland, California. These are Meyer Lemons. They are the source of acidity for many of the foods we would make when I lived in Oakland because these little fruit grow just about everywhere and practically all year there. I find these in the markets here in New York but never quite as good as when you can pick them off of your own tree in your garden.

Here’s a Meyer Lemon Tart recipe from the New York Times:

Meyer Lemon Tart

TOTAL TIME

1 hour (plus 1 hour for chilling the dough)

Ingredients

• 13 1/2 ounces (3 sticks plus 3 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing pan
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 8 large egg yolks
• 1/2 tablespoon milk
• 12 ounces (about 2 1/3 cups) all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon plus 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 pound (5 or 6) Meyer lemons
• 5 large eggs

Preparation

1.

In the bowl of a mixer, cream together 8 ounces softened butter (2 sticks) and 1/2 cup sugar. Add 1 egg yolk and the milk, and beat to combine. In a medium bowl, combine the flour with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Slowly add the flour to the butter mixture, stirring until completely blended. Gather dough into two balls. Freeze one for future use, chill the other for at least 1 hour.

2.

Heavily butter a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a circle 1/8-inch thick. Transfer to the tart pan, press into the pan and trim the edges. Prick the bottom with a fork, and place the shell in the freezer for 30 minutes.

3.

While shell is in freezer, prepare lemon curd: grate zest of lemons. Squeeze lemons to extract 1 cup of juice. In a medium nonreactive saucepan, combine juice and zest. Add remaining 1 cup sugar, remaining 5 1/2 ounces butter and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Place over medium heat, stirring once or twice, until sugar is dissolved and the butter is melted.

4.

In bowl of a mixer, combine eggs and remaining 7 egg yolks until blended. Slowly add hot lemon mixture to eggs until blended. Return mixture to saucepan, and place over low heat. Whisk constantly until mixture thickens to a pudding like consistency; do not allow it to boil. Remove from heat, and continue to stir to stop the cooking. Strain lemon curd into a bowl. Adjust sugar to taste; the curd should be tart, but may need additional sugar if the lemons were unripe. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing it right against the surface of the curd. Allow to cool.

5.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Remove tart shell from freezer, and bake until lightly golden, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. Spoon lemon curd into tart shell, and smooth the top. Bake until filling has puffed around the edges, about 30 minutes. Cover edges with foil, if necessary, to prevent over-browning. Cool to room temperature before serving.

Mukhamet Shayakhmetov and Comic Books

As I’ve been working on this comic book I took the time out to make a little illustration from a book I came across called “The Silent Steppe” written by Mukhamet Shayakhmetov. It’s described “the story of a Kazakhs nomad under Stalin”. I really liked the historical photographs of the life and times of the writer. Here’s a drawing I made from one of the photos of the author (standing) and his friend in 1938. I love the clothing, the body language and the boots! My goal for the end of the year, hopefully by the fall I will get a chance to start in on a comic book that takes place in Kazakhstan. This summer I hope to do a bunch of research so I can make the comic look and feel like Kazakhstan.  For now we have this image to think about how it may look.

Dreams

Four Square

Haddonfield, New Jersey

Tug and Barge on the Hudson

My parents have been visiting New York from California for the holidays. High on my mother’s list of sights is the Statue of Liberty. Instead of paying the money to visit the island we decided to take the Staten Island Ferry  past Liberty Island. I spotted many boats and barges working along the river. This one was carrying garbage. I’ve been wanting to make a watercolor of one of these boats on the waterfront. When I do I’ll post it. I haven’t quite caught a good enough photo along the waterfront here in New York worthy of a watercolor. The photos I took this day were under a lot of cloud cover so I made this vector image. I did find this lovely blog called Bowsprite on New York nautical culture. It’s absolutely the best blog! The artwork is superb!

Gipson School

This painting is inspired by the photo from the collection of Gabriel Lopez historian and writer of “White Gold Laborers”. It’s of The Gipson School in Greeley Colorado.

The Three Heroes

One of my favorite buildings in Almaty Kazakhstan. This building was dedicated to the three heroes that fought and died against the Nazi’s in WWII.

The building is really beautiful! I’ve made a few paintings of this building over the years.