Evan Turk's Reportage and Illustration Blog

Seattle: Pike Place Market

2011-11-28T16:48:00.001-08:00

This summer, I had the chance to visit the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. It's a bright and colorful place with a diverse group of sellers (and the original Starbucks!).

My favorite was seeing the incredible flower shops run by the Hmong. The Hmong are a group of people from Laos, who, during the Vietnam war, came in large numbers as refugees to America. The Hmong were unsung heroes of the Vietnam War, with over 18,000 losing their lives in dangerous missions from the CIA in a special task force. As a result of the war, there are large Hmong communities across the country, with one of the largest in Northern California. Their flowers were brilliant, fresh, and endless.

Pike Place is famous for as a fishing market, and there are several fish and seafood shops. I'm not much for eating seafood, but it is an entertaining array of things to draw.

The "fish toss" is one of the main attractions of the market, with tourists lining up to take pictures as the sellers toss large fish back and forth.

Among the flowers and fish are stands of delicious and vibrant fruits and vegetables from local growers, so I decided to make a few fruit crate labels for the Market.

Featured in Varoom! Magazine

2011-10-30T13:17:00.000-07:00

Exciting news!

My reportage of Seattle Gay Pride was featured in Varoom! Magazine, a UK publication put out by the Association of Illustrators.

"Depicting the celebratory nature of a Gay Pride march is always going to include the most flamboyant participants, and Evan Turk's drawings from this year's parade in Seattle capture the muscle guys and drag queens with rapid lines and streaks of colour. He expands the story by turning his eye to those watching the march and equally celebrates the older people and possible first timers sharing an empowering event such as this." -Derek Brazell for Varoom!

Very exciting to see, and also exciting to see a whole section on reportage in a publication like this!

Another of my illustrations from the event was used on the website.

Washington DC in Fall

2011-10-11T06:22:00.001-07:00

This past weekend, Chris and I took a trip to visit my grandma and my aunt in Washington DC/Virginia. We had a wonderful time catching up with family! They are about 2 weeks ahead of New York in fall, and it's so beautiful there.

The treetops are beginning to rust, with some trees blooming in bright gold and red, while the rest of the forest stays the bright green of summer.

I realized how starved for trees we are here in New York after seeing how immense the forests are in Virginia. It feels like they go on forever.

Fall is one of my favorite times of year. You feel like you have to enjoy each warm day like it's your last, and join the trees one last time on parade before winter.

Gay Marriage In New York!

2011-07-24T17:23:00.001-07:00

Today was the first day for gay marriage in the state of New York, and I went down to the City Clerk's office in Lower Manhattan to draw the event. Here are a few drawings from the day, but to read and see more, visit my gay rights illustration site:

A Picture For 1000 Voices

Gay Pride Seattle

2011-07-17T19:30:00.000-07:00

More from my trip with Dalvero to the West Coast! Our first three days were in Seattle, which happened to coincide with Seattle's gay pride parade! I was very excited to be able to do a reportage of the parade, especially after the gay marriage bill passed back home in New York (yay!), and I wasn't going to be there to celebrate.

The Rainbow Flag was atop The Space Needle for the second year in a row, as a response to a fund-raising effort by the Seattle gay community for local causes and an overwhelming outcry when the Space Needle announced it would not be displaying the flag this year. As I waited for the parade, I sat next to a sweet lesbian woman and her preteen daughter (who pointed out every mostly nude person that walked by to her mother). It was cute seeing a family that had made Pride (nudity and all) a family tradition.

The parade began, as New York's parade does, with the sputtering engines of the Dykes on Bikes. The crowd erupted in a roar of cheers as they circled around, studded leather jackets flying in the wind (among other things).

The dykes were followed by a troop of drag queens in sky-high platform heels and gothic black dresses. The crowd itself was no less diverse, with it's share of...everything, shouting and cheering as the parade marched down the street.

Soon after was the familiar explosion of muscley male gyration, rainbow flags, and even more drag queens.

Some new additions from Seattle were the completely nude, painted rollerbladers and bike riders and another, more "free-wheeling" dyke on a bike.

But just as with the New York parade, for every muscle-Daddy in assless chaps and a leather g-string, there is a sweet moment between two people that are just happy to be out holding hands with the person they love.

What I love about Pride parades, is that it brings out all facets of the gay community, and makes them visible.

You can see everyone from young gay boys, who may be out for the first time...

...to an older lesbian couple who have been together, and watching the parade for 20 years.

So congratulations to New York on making a huge step towards equality, and good luck to Seattle's gay community! Here's hoping you're next!

West Coast Travels!

2011-07-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

I just returned from an amazing trip with Dalvero Academy to Seattle and San Francisco. I hadn't been to either place while being old enough to remember, so it was exciting for me to get to go to not just one, but TWO brand new places.

As I wind down...here are a few drawings I made at a nature preserve that was just a 30 minute walk from our hotel in Berkeley. It was a beautiful place. Every time you turned around, there was another beautiful impressionist landscape waiting for you. It made for a very slow, but very nice, walk.

It was mainly a bird preserve, so there were seagulls, sparrows, geese, swallows, and crows twittering and flying all around me as I was drawing. I found a rocky beach as well, with glittering water lapping up on the shore, and birds diving in to catch fish.

"Milking the Rhino"

2011-06-07T14:57:00.000-07:00

This is a drawing I made while watching a documentary called "Milking the Rhino" which discussed the ways in which conservation of wildlife has intersected and butted up against industry for local people.

Going to Africa to reportage is at the very top of my "bucket list", so this was a really fascinating thing for me to watch. The idea of "marketing" the wilderness, such as in National Parks, has always felt like somewhat of a double-edged sword. Obviously it's better to have them protected than open to poaching and complete destruction. But turning nature (and the people of rural Africa) into a commodity is unsettling as well, and often has the result of making it feel like a theme park. I can't pretend to know where the happy medium is, but it was interesting to see many different sides of the issue presented. I highly recommend it! (Plus it's on NetFlix instant watch!)

Breathing: Part 2!

2011-05-13T16:47:00.000-07:00

So! Here is the finished animation from the earlier post for an animation about using your own energy to create and change the world around you.

Hopefully it helps you slow down and breathe for a few seconds, which is something I often have a very hard time doing!

Kitties!

2011-05-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

So after last post, I feel like I need to re-establish myself as a cat person. These are some drawings I did of my two kitties back in Colorado...and since I won't see them for a few months, this is my ode to them!

This is Stormy:

She's the older of the two, I think she's about 18 now, and is surprisingly hard to draw because she's just a tiny wisp of fluff. She's very quiet, has a tiny head, and weighs about a much as a kleenex.

And this is Athena:

She's only about....6? I can't remember. She's a lot more substantial (although still pretty tiny), but at the time I drew these around Christmas, she had recently been shaved into a fashionable and not-at-all-ridiculous lion haircut.

UPDATE!!!!: The cats' PR Rep (my mom) has released the following statement: "I am writing this response on behalf of the two afformentioned kitties. Stormy wanted to assure you that she weighs as much as two wet tissues (she has been working out). Athena is highly insulted and wants everyone to know that most of her hair has grown back and now she looks like the ferocious tiger that she is."

City Hall Park

2011-04-18T15:30:00.000-07:00

I went drawing today with my friend Jackie in City Hall Park in lower Manhattan. It was so pretty with all of the magnolia trees blooming.

There was this sweet little miniature schnauzer there who came over and sniffed my art supplies for a while. What a hilarious little animal! I'm still a cat person, but dogs are slowly winning me over...

Is it spring yet?

2011-03-29T18:42:00.000-07:00

Much to my dismay after last week's post about the 70 degree weather, New York has revisited winter again for this week. It's very confusing. I sat in on my teacher Ronnie's location drawing class today and got to draw in Union Square for a couple hours. I decided to make one drawing to show the bleak depressing winter....and one to show the hopeful (and hopefully soon-to-come) spring! Hopefully you can tell which is which...

Sunny Day in Washington Square

2011-03-22T11:21:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, we had a wonderful, 70 degree day. I was on Spring Break, so I took the day to go drawing in Washington Square Park. I wanted to just play around and try to draw the park in as many ways as I could while still enjoying the sunshine and fresh air!

The magnolia buds have already started blooming on my street corner, so I'm hoping we can all begin to emerge from our caves and go outside again soon.

Breathing

2011-02-17T16:33:00.000-08:00

These are a few drawings, thumbnails, and storyboards for an animation I'm working on that focuses on using your energy as a way to change the world around you.

Stay tuned for the full animation!

Disney Trip #3!

2011-01-24T18:34:00.000-08:00

Last week I got back from another class in Disneyworld, and it was wonderful as always! It was great to get into the mode of studying and playing around again. Speaking of playing around, here is a drawing from the nighttime light parade at the Magic Kingdom, full of psychedelic retro-wackiness!

I Return! (With some animation!)

2010-12-19T11:59:00.001-08:00

Wow, it has been such a long time since I last posted. I've been working on an animation for my last year at Parsons, so I've been busy with that for most of this semester. Here's a few drawings and collages from that, as well as a trailer for the final animation (Coming Spring 2011!)

"Clouds" Teaser Trailer from Evan Turk on Vimeo.

Here are a couple shots of the set-up for presenting my thesis to the judges (taken by my fellow classmate, Deniz!):

(me, looking a little delirious)

And some of the storyboard collages and drawings:

Paris: Monmartre

2010-09-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

Now that school's started again, I can start reliving my summer! Still working backwards...the last day of my trip to Paris, was the neighborhood of Monmartre.

Monmartre feels like a storybook version of Paris, with old cobblestone streets intersecting at impossible angles, wacky characters, and soaring views of the entire city. And stairs. Lots and lots of hills and stairs.

The center of Monmartre is the beautiful Sacre Coeur basilica. It's a very unusual cathedral, that looks almost Middle Eastern, with tall domed towers and the pure white stone. It always looks to me like it's been plucked out of the desert and put onto a Parisian hillside.

Back behind the cathedral is a beautiful (although closed) vineyard. I did my best to fumble through the placard with information about it, but then I overheard people talking about how the wine is awful, because of the lack of sunlight, but sells for a very high price because they donate the proceeds to charity.

My last stop in Monmartre was to the artist square, where dozens of artists and patrons cram into a small square to paint, sell, and buy art. It's great to see all of the artists out there working in such a picturesque place. It makes you feel like you're sitting in the residual energy of Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, and all the other artists who worked there, trying to soak up anything they left behind.

Colorado!

2010-08-08T11:31:00.000-07:00

Hello! It's been a long time since I've posted here, since I've been out of town for the past month. I took a wonderful reportage class in Paris for 10 days, and then I went home to Colorado for a week. I'll start with Colorado since Paris will take longer. What a great month it's been! Colorado was so fantastic for a break. My boyfriend Chris and I went back to visit my family and take a little break from city life. The thing we could not get over was how INCREDIBLE everything smells in Colorado! There are flowers, trees, thunderstorms, rain, and just clean pure air. I can't believe I barely noticed how great it smells when I lived there.

Anyway, moving along, Chris and I went downtown into Denver one day and happened upon the Denver Botanic Gardens. They were having a show of Henry Moore's sculpture throughout the gardens, which was beautiful. Just drawing the flowers after having seen the sculptures made the gardens, shapes, and colors feel completely different.

The gardens cleared out once it got cloudy, and looked like rain, but we stuck around and stayed outside in the cool, fresh air. Rain doesn't seem so threatening in Colorado, because it just feels, smells and sounds wonderful.

Towards the end of the trip, we headed up into Rocky Mountain National Park to hike. Another thing I couldn't get over were the clouds! There is SO much sky in Colorado, and the clouds stretch around in a 360 degree panoramic wherever you are. The only time you can't see clouds in every direction is when you're up in the mountains surrounded by jagged cliffs and pine trees (don't even get me started on how good it smells up in the mountains...it's like what Pine-Sol wishes it could be...).

We ended up going on a 7 mile hike that looped around various lakes, through the forest.

Every once in a while, through the tangled pine trees, we could see through to beautiful soaring peaks and turquoise lakes.

Near the end of the trail, we came to the roaring Alberta Falls.

Finally we made it down to the base and began to drive home. The rains had finally come, after booming all day long, and we had given up on seeing any big wildlife for the rest of the day. But wait! Over in a marshy valley was a surprisingly orange animal wading through the grass. We all hopped out of the car and I ran down into the grass to get a closer look. A single, beautiful female elk was grazing near the side of a creek. It's always amazing to see such exotic animals, like something you'd see in Africa, grazing in a field only a couple hours from downtown Denver.

It was a wonderful, peaceful, and relaxing trip, and I can't wait to get back to clear the city air out of my lungs again.

The Cloisters

2010-07-04T11:38:00.001-07:00

Chris and I spent a beautiful and relaxing day at the Cloisters in upper Manhattan yesterday. The museum itself is so amazing, and the gardens outside the grounds seem like they're bursting with too much vegetation to be real. It was so wonderful to "get out of the city" for a little while and sit around underneath the trees.

Shakespeare in the Park

2010-06-27T21:06:00.001-07:00

Last week I went with a few friends to draw a performance of Richard III in Central Park. Now, I'm embarrassed to admit that I have never read Richard III, so I didn't really always know exactly what was happening, but I tried to keep up! It was easier to get caught up in the beauty of the performance, with the actors moving from one picturesque spot to the next. The whole thing looked like a fairy tale, and the audience was spellbound like little kids hearing a storybook, leaning in towards the actors as they delivered their lines.

I did manage to catch one line I knew at the end of the play, though!

"A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!"

You can view my friends' beautiful drawings from the same event below:

Audrey
Alex
Julia

The Sea Music Festival

2010-06-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

A couple weekends ago I got the chance to return to Mystic Seaport, Connecticut while The Sea Music Festival was going on. It was great getting to see the performers and the audience interacting because they were both equally excited to be singing the songs they all knew by heart.

The seaport was full of characters, who looked and sounded like they had stepped out of the 19th century. It was amazing to see how a place can be transformed by the people occupying it, and how the whole place came to life when they sang the shanties.

(They each signed by their portraits!)

The highlight of the weekend for me was seeing The Barrouallie Whalers. They are a group of men from St. Vincent and the Grenadines who, in the recent past, hunted the pilot whales off the coasts of the islands as their profession. Today they sing the unique whaling shanties they sang on the whale boats, many of which share similarities to the shanties sung by "Yankee" whalers in the 19th Century.

It was amazing to see these men sing with such intensity and passion, ,and you could see their whaling days come alive in their voices as they sang.

The even had a short demonstration where they reenacted the sighting and hunting of a whale in a whaleboat out in the Mystic harbor.

Towards the end of the day, there was a concert featuring a group of women from the Mystic area called The Johnson Sisters, the Barrouallie Whalers, and a group of French shanty-men from Brittany, called Nordet. The began by singing songs individually, but as the concert went on, they all began to sing together. Whether they knew the words to begin with or not, they began to show the real power behind songs like sea shanties. The songs were developed aboard ships where people from all over the world sailed, and often didn't speak the same language. The songs have simple, chant-like lyrics, so that, no matter the language the sailor spoke, he could join in and keep pace with the work.

The men from Barrouallie and the people from Connecticut and Brittany could not look any more different if they tried, but these people could come together, from all over the world, to sing songs and fight to keep their world history alive.

100th Post!: St. Patrick's Cathedral

2010-06-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

Hurray, this is my 100th post!

Today my plans got thwarted so I ended up going and drawing St. Patrick's Cathedral instead. Not a bad Plan B!

Isadora Duncan in Central Park

2010-05-27T18:52:00.000-07:00

Today while wandering in Central Park, I happened to come upon a performance by "Dances By Isadora" in honor of Isadora Duncan's birthday (she would have been 132!). Duncan is considered by many to be the creator of modern dance.

The dancers were beautiful, dressed in flowing tunics with a rainbow of colors. I have always been in love with fabric flowing in the wind, so needless to say I was happy. It was like walking into a fairytale when I came around the corner at the Bethesda Terrace. One of the reasons I love New York so much, is that you can find wonderful things to see without even trying.

The performances featured little girls, teenagers, and women who all danced in honor of the last generation of women that had danced until they passed away in their nineties.

Summer Day

2010-05-23T16:48:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I had a beautiful day of drawing in the West Village. I started out a French cafe on 6th avenue and had a delicious waffle, while sitting next to the most awful woman I have ever seen.

Within seconds of sitting down, our waiter had come to get her drink order and she proceeded to yell at him about some silly thing with the chair.
Once he brought her coffee, she went to yell at one of the busboys that the waiter hadn't brought her a new spoon quickly enough.
When the waiter came back to take her order, she ordered eggs on the side. When the waiter asked if she wanted eggs on the side of something or just a side of eggs, she yelled again and asked for a new waiter.
She then called over the hostess and yelled at her because a new waiter hadn't been assigned to her yet (it had been about one minute). She asked to speak to the manager. The hostess calmed her down, and she then ordered a side of eggs and toast.
When the hostess sweetly named all of the breads they carried, the woman then yelled at her for not having "plain" toast, and grumpily allowed them to bring her sourdough. The poor girl looked so terrified, like she was trying to put out a fire that had started for absolutely no reason.
All of this occurred within about 5 minutes.

It was completely baffling to me that people treat waiters like that, but I guess people are so inside their own heads sometimes that they don't realize the people around them are people too! *sigh* Anyhoo at least it made for an entertaining meal!

I then went to sit in the park across from Magnolia Bakery, where the pigeons are quite brazen, and where droves of tourists stand in line all day to get movie-star cupcakes. Personally, I've never really liked the cupcakes that much...but I can't really talk, since I went there my first week of being in New York too.

Magnolia also draws crowds of tour groups, especially from the "Sex and the City Tour" variety. While there, several bachelorette parties came by to stop and sample the famous cupcakes. Everyone was always dressed to the nines, like they were out for a night of clubbing, wearing cropped black jackets (all of them) and five inch stilettos (for a walking tour...gluttons for punishment!).

Other than the cupcake aficionados, there was a sweet, beautiful woman who seemed to be falling more in love with the man she was sitting across from every minute. Her smile kept beaming from across the park.

There was also a woman who was quite the multitasker.

Then I left the park and walked towards the Hudson to watch the sunset.

When the sun started to set across the river, there was a sweet gay couple enjoying the moment under the trees. Then a big wind came and blew my ink bottle all over the table. Ink-tastrophe! Still, a great day!

One Step At a Time

2010-05-18T18:12:00.000-07:00

My spring semester just ended! Here is an animation that I was working on for part of the semester:

One Step at a Time from Evan Turk on Vimeo.

Spring begins

Quietly

From the stork's one pace.

-Shoha

(Sound is quiet at the beginning, turn up the volume!)

A Picture For A Thousand Voices: Relaunch!

2010-05-06T13:45:00.000-07:00

Here is an illustration to celebrate the re-launch of my site, "A Picture For A Thousand Voices"! This project is a collection of illustrations, by myself and others, about the individual stories involved in the gay rights movement. The illustrations and stories will hopefully be able to extend the dialogue between the gay and straight communities about why equal rights is important to everyone.

The project now features a gallery page:

http://picturefor1000voices.com/

As well as a new blog for news/thoughts/illustrations related to the gay rights movement:

http://blog.picturefor1000voices.com/

If you haven't yet, become a follower of the blog to receive updates and show your support!

To read more about this illustration, visit: American Dream

Happy Birthday, Me!

2010-05-01T07:18:00.000-07:00

In honor of my own birthday (hurray!), here are a few drawings of one of my favorite things: cherry blossoms! I didn't make it to the festival this year (which I think is today, actually) but my boyfriend and I got to go down and watch the early blooming trees a couple weeks ago. The ones that bloom earlier tend to be the white, and light pink ones, which are less showy, but almost more beautiful. There's nothing more relaxing than spending a day underneath the cherry blossoms!

This is a drawing of a father helping his little girl climb one of the cherry trees. I'm not sure that she had decided whether she actually wanted to be climbing the trees, though.

Madison Square Park

2010-04-08T17:33:00.000-07:00

A spring day at the Flatiron Building!

Gandhi Statue in Union Square

2010-04-04T18:23:00.001-07:00

Spring is in bloom and I couldn't be happier about it!

Fela!

2010-03-28T18:29:00.000-07:00

My mom was in town for the past week, and we went to see the show Fela! on Broadway. It was phenomenal! I've never been so inspired after leaving a show. The stage, and the entire theater was turned into a spectacle in itself. The costumes, singing, acting, and the music were incredible! It didn't hurt that we were sitting front row, center. We were so close that a couple of times the dancers looked down and saw me drawing and gave me a wink.

The story is of Fela Kuti, a Nigerian musican who created the Afrobeat music style (which is impossible to not dance to!) and became a political activist of Black Power and pan-Africanism.

Fela was inspired by his mother, Kunmilayo Kuti, who was a political activist for women's rights. She was killed after the government responded violently to Fela's anti-government album when she was thrown from a second story window. The woman who played her was incredible. Her voice gave me chills every time, and when she was done with her songs I felt like passing out.

In the second act, in a religious sequence, the entire stage goes into black-light in the dark. It's beautiful. This is also where I noticed the most beautiful woman (one of the dancers). I'm sure I missed a lot of the show just watching these women dance.

Their dancing was completely mesmerizing. It's as if each section of their body was a completely different organism, but all of them were moving to the beat somehow.

Everyone, go out and see this show! You won't be disappointed!

Sledding!

2010-03-02T14:36:00.001-08:00

This last Friday we had a blizzard, and on Saturday I went up to the MET where I saw dozens of kids and their parents sledding on the hill behind the museum. It looked like someone had tossed a bunch of Skittles onto the hill! I was a little jealous. I wish I had brought my snowpants out from Colorado.

Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T07:32:00.000-08:00

From my project for the gay rights movement:
A Picture For A Thousand Voices

When you open your heart and show someone a piece of your soul, you have the power to open eyes, open minds, and open hearts.

When you allow your heart to be open, you have the power to understand.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Drawing in Union Square

2010-01-25T15:55:00.001-08:00

Today was my first day back in classes for the spring semester, and I spent practically the entire day drawing in Union Square. It was wonderful! Even though there was a deluge outside, there are plenty of places around to draw people.

I started off the day drawing people in the subway for my first class.

Then on my break between classes, I went and drew people in Starbucks. It's amazing how many different kinds of people you will see if you sit in that Starbucks long enough.

The woman in the blue shirt above (and her husband) noticed me drawing her and came over to see what I was doing. She said she liked the drawing, but joked that she really must have gotten fatter (thank god she was pregnant!). I felt guilty, but I guess that's the risk you take when you go and look at someone's drawing of you!

Finally, after my next class, the rain let up for a brief moment. The sky got intensely blue as the sun started to go down, and I managed to squeeze in a drawing before the rain started again (see rain in upper right corner).

A perfect start to the semester!

Elephants

2010-01-15T16:03:00.000-08:00

Day 4 of my Museo-palooza this week at the Natural History Museum. I love drawing elephants!

At the MET

2010-01-13T15:40:00.000-08:00

I was working on a project at the MET today and I stopped to make a drawing of the two people sitting next to me at the cafe in the American sculpture garden. The lady on the left was quite the talker.

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-22T09:31:00.001-08:00

Wow, long time no post! That's what finals will do to you...but here's a little series for the holidays of one of the Rockefeller Center angels breaking formation and doing her own thing!
I hope you all have a great non-denominational winter season!

-Evan

Indian Summer

2009-11-09T15:00:00.000-08:00

Today was another beautiful, 70-something day, so I tried to squeeze in a little more drawing before it gets too cold to stay outside for hours on end. I was watching a group of highschoolers congregating in Union Square, another thing there will probably be less of once winter sets in.

The Peking

2009-11-08T15:23:00.000-08:00

Today was so beautiful outside I decided to go down to the seaport and work, and get a little drawing in too. The Peking always seems so enormous every time I go down there, like it's just another building in downtown Manhattan. Except it's floating in the water...

Fall Foliage

2009-11-01T14:51:00.000-08:00

Today, Chris and I went up to see the leaves at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. The colors were absolutely amazing! We just wandered around the whole day, walked through the forest, got lost. It was so relaxing.

At one point we passed this ridiculously red Japanese maple, and I made Chris stop so I could make a drawing. While we were stopped there, this little family of chipmunks started playing around a bush just past the maple, and were scurrying around the entire time. It was like being in the middle of a scene from Bambi.

Disney: Spectral MAGIC!

2009-10-25T18:02:00.001-07:00

So last year at Disney, there happened to be a slight hurricane the entire time we were there. So the Spectral Magic Night Parade Extravaganza was canceled every night we were in the Magic Kingdom. But THIS time, there was no hurricane, and I finally got to see the parade. It was fantastic! They shut off all of the lights on Main Street, and then these bizarre, neon, laser-light, floats and dancers come swirling around and winding their way through the streets, with futuristic beeping and whirring sound effects. It's very beautiful, and very trippy. My favorite part was the Pegaus float from Fantasia, I'm going to have to do a drawing of just them next year....

Disney: Waiting for the Parade

2009-10-18T18:18:00.000-07:00

In the Magic Kingdom, the crowds of people start to line the street as the park is closing, waiting for the Spectral Magic Night Parade that goes down Main Street every night. Here are people settling themselves down to wait for the parade, and the parade is up next!

National Equality March

2009-10-12T18:58:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday, October 11, 2009, was the National Equality March: A march on the Capitol in Washington DC demanding the LGBT community's full and equal rights under the law. We marched. And we listened to the speeches of leaders, activists, actors, pop-stars, and Judy Shepard, who lost her son years ago to homophobic violence, and inspired the nation to protect their LGBT children. As we all stood and listened, their words echoed from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, to the White House, to every symbol of freedom, equality, and democracy that had built our nation.

To view the entire blog post and all the rest of the drawings, please visit http://picturefor1000voices.com

Disney: Gibbons

2009-10-09T17:55:00.000-07:00

-----------------------------------------
First, a notice: My project, A Picture For A Thousand Voices has moved to http:picturefor1000voices.com and is being updated regularly, so go check it out!
------------------------------------------

I have always loved gibbons, ever since I was a little kid. They're so graceful but goofy at the same time, and are by far the most adorable of the apes. Their body language is so human, but so strange and distorted. Animal Kingdom had a baby gibbon this year, who I could have sat and watched for hours. Of course, I had other things I had to go and draw, but I couldn't resist drawing them every time I passed by their enclosure.

Disney: The Castle

2009-10-05T20:23:00.001-07:00

Everyone was crowded under the castle as it started to rain. I was under shelter too, but the wind still managed to knock my ink bottle over! Thank god for water soluble ink, the rain did most of the cleaning for me!

The Last Days of Summer

2009-09-19T17:13:00.000-07:00

I decided to do my homework in Bryant Park today to celebrate the beginning of fall and mourn the end of summer. It was a beautiful day, and people were out enjoying it like their last!

Disney Session: Animal Parade

2009-09-16T15:37:00.000-07:00

The parade in animal kingdom is amazing to draw. You can hear the drums starting from way down the street, and your head starts going and your heart starts jumping like a little kid, and then there's an explosion of joy, color, music, and patterns. Plus, it comes by twice, so twice the drawing!

Disney Session: Life Drawing 3

2009-08-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

And here are the drawings from the 5th day (we had a museum day on the 4th day because the model got food poisoning, ouch!):

Next, off to Disneyworld!

Disney Session: Life Drawing 2

2009-08-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

Here are a few drawings from the model we had on the third day:

Disney Session: Life Drawing 1

2009-08-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

So I recently finished a session of a yearly class that consists of 5 full days of figure drawing and then 10 days of drawing at Disneyworld doing reportage. It was an INCREDIBLE session, and I can't wait to go again next year! I'll be posting drawings from the figure drawing and reportage over the next couple weeks, so enjoy!

Here are a few drawings of the model we drew for the first two days of the class:

The Jersey Shore

2009-08-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

I went down to South Jersey this weekend to visit a friend, and had a great time at the Jersey Shore. South Jersey is beautiful! It was my first real time into New Jersey, and I was so surprised, since all I had heard was people badmouthing New Jersey (and especially the south). But it was so beautiful, lush, and green! It was nice to get out of the city for a few days and just relax on the beach.

Belvedere Castle

2009-07-28T16:05:00.000-07:00

I've always wanted to draw Belvedere Castle in Central Park, but the last time I tried to draw there, it was January and I got frozen out of the park. Now I decided to go in the summer, and I got horrendously sunburned! I can't win! Or I should just wear sunscreen. Anyhoo, it was a great drawing day, I'm glad I finally got up there to draw the castle. Plus, I got to try out my new reportage stuff for my trip to Disney this year (new dip pen and new oil pastels/turpentine brush pen!) and the new reference book I've been making.

Central Park

2009-07-20T18:05:00.000-07:00

Went down to Central Park to draw the runners for an assignment and got a little drawing done for myself, too! It was a beautiful day, though I'm surprised so many people were out running in the heat of the day! Masochists, all of them.

Colorado Continued: Macchio!

2009-07-14T14:29:00.000-07:00

While I was home, I also had the pleasure of meeting my brother and his fiance's brand new puppy, Macchio (It means "Spot" in Italian)! I am not a dog person. I even took a "course" from my mom's friend when I was little about how to not be completely terrified of dogs (I received a bone-shaped magnet for my achievement). But Macchio is the sweetest dog in the world. I absolutely love my new little nephew, and he even let me draw him while we were headed up hiking in the car! (You can see a tiiiiny drawing of him with my brother in the last post of the hiking drawings.)

Colorado

2009-07-14T14:19:00.001-07:00

Last week I went back home to visit my family in Colorado and had a fantastic time! I even got to do a little bit of drawing on our hike. When you live in New York City for a while, you start to think that you can fit the entire world onto the head of a pin. There's everything you can imagine, including a nice swatch of nature in Central Park. But going to a place like Colorado makes you remember how magical real nature feels, and nothing else can really compare.

Madison Square Park

2009-06-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

Nice lazy day drawing in Madison Square Park today! I'm so happy that it's finally sunny, and so was everyone else. The park was mobbed! As soon as the clouds started to roll in, though, the park practically emptied out. Catch the sun while it lasts!

Pride

2009-06-29T11:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the Gay Pride Parade in New York City, and it was my first Pride event. Up until yesterday, I never really understood the relevance of Pride. It was my thought that people already understand that yes, we're here and we're queer, but now it's our job to help them get used to it. And the vocal extreme fringe minorities that I thought of when Gay Pride came to mind, were not the way to do it.

After going to the parade, yesterday, my feelings began to change. I began to see that Pride isn't about flaunting yourself, it's about camaraderie. It's about being able to go out and see the overwhelming sense of unity and support that are present in the gay community. Being able to step out anywhere in the city and feel a sense of belonging, and yes, Pride in oneself and one's community, is a wonderful feeling. A feeling that I hope soon, everyone will be able to experience. So although this was only my first Pride Parade, it won't be my last!

This post is part of my project "A Picture For A Thousand Voices".

Summer Drawing

2009-06-26T11:35:00.000-07:00

Now that it's summer, I've gotten some time to draw around the city a little bit more! Here are a few drawings from various places in New York:

Chris: The Unwitting Model

The MoMA Sculpture Garden

The Cloisters Museum

The elms in Central Park

The Subway

Union Square
In the last one, a man had cruised this girl for about 15 minutes, and then knelt down next to her, handed her a flower and schmoozed on her for another 15 minutes. A rather ballsy (creepy) move, I thought. But she seemed to like the attention whether she was interested or not!

A Picture For A Thousand Voices

2009-06-21T10:35:00.001-07:00

I'd like to let you all know about a project that I'm working on for the gay rights movement called "A Picture For A Thousand Voices." This is a project that seeks to help establish a dialogue between members of the LGBT community and the straight community about why the equal rights movement is a fight worth fighting. Since words have often been falling on deaf ears, I would hope that perhaps through art and illustration, these ideas can be better understood by both the straight and LGBT communities.

If you are an illustrator, ask yourself or your LGBT friends what their hopes for equal rights are and send me (evan@evanturk.com) your artwork. If you’re not an artist, send in your story, and someone can help illustrate your hope for equal rights (this includes non-gay members of the gay community!). If you are an artist and would like to be involved but don't have a story to illustrate, e-mail me and I'll find you one.

The idea of equal rights is about understanding others, not just tolerating them. If we can show others, and remind ourselves, why this fight is important, it will be that much easier to win.

I hope that you'll all participate!

-Evan

Portfolio Site!

2009-06-12T06:05:00.001-07:00

My portfolio site of illustration and design work is now up! Take a look, I hope you enjoy it!

My Portfolio Site

Also to view more reportage work, please visit my flickr page:

My Flickr Page

-Evan

Washington Square Arch

2009-05-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful day today and I went to draw the Washington Square Arch! I love this time of year in New York, there are so many people outside. I also thought this was neat because almost exactly a year ago I drew the arch during my first semester at Parsons. Fun to compare!

Cherry Blossom Festival

2009-05-05T21:54:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went to the Sakura Matsuri festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens where all of the cherry trees are in full bloom. There were crowds of people (lots of them in extravagant anime costumes) and beautiful flowers everywhere. It was raining to begin with, which was actually sort of fun because everyone was walking around with their umbrellas out. It looked like a Japanese woodblock print. But then the sun came out for most of the day and it was absolutely beautiful. The colors, the smells, the sounds; it doesn't get much better than drawing all day outside under the cherry blossom trees.

North Pole Expedition

2009-04-08T15:21:00.000-07:00

In a class of mine, director Barry Scott, a friend of the class' instructor, proposed a competition to our class to design a flag commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first trip to the North Pole. Barry came on behalf of the Masonic Kane Lodge in New York City which was organizing an event in honor of Robert Peary (once a member of the lodge) and Matthew Henson reaching the pole on April 6th 1909. So we all created designs, and mine was selected to be used for all of the promotional materials for the event (posters, pamphlets, programs, etc). The photos are of my friend, Christina, and I at the Grand Lodge at the event (which we received a free invitation to!). The lodge is absolutely beautiful, and the room we were in was what the ballroom on the Titanic was designed after. A great experience!

Who Watches the Watchmen?

2009-04-01T16:40:00.000-07:00

Hopefully not that many people. The movie was pretty underwhelming, but we had an assignment to do a poster for it. Graphically, the movie wasn't bad, though, so there was a lot to pull from for imagery.

Shuffle

2009-03-26T12:58:00.000-07:00

This is a design for a movie poster I did recently (although the client chose a completely different one) for a romantic comedy in which the scenes have been shuffled around.

New York City Reportage

2009-03-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

Some drawings from over the past month around New York.

The Bethesda Terrace at Central Park

A chatty group of girls at the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park.

Outside a movie theater in the rain in Union Square.

Hands That Give Also Receive

2009-03-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

This is an illustration of the proverb "Hands that give also receive."

Flower Breaks

2009-03-05T19:58:00.001-08:00

I took little 10 minute breaks while I was working today to just play around and see what I could come up with while drawing the same thing multiple times. Here are my various interpretations of a flower arrangement. Just a fun little exercise!

Haiku: Wisteria in Bloom

2009-03-05T12:28:00.000-08:00

草臥れて　宿かるころや　藤の花

Exhausted, I sought
a country inn, but found
wisteria in bloom

This is an illustration of a haiku for a show at the Children's Book Fair in Bologna this summer.

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!

2009-02-18T14:08:00.000-08:00

Attack of the retro toy robots! We had a project to illustrate a poster for a toy robot convention in Grand Central in which the client asked to show gigantic toy robots attacking Grand Central.

My goal was to find the cutest robot I could and make him look threatening. I bought this little guy (the gears in his chest actually spin, and he actually shoots sparks!) He's still pretty cute, and it looks like he's just a little confused and scared, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't be threatened by him if you saw him stomping around Grand Central and shooting laser beams!

Around New York

2009-02-16T14:28:00.001-08:00

Just a couple sketches from the past month or two around New York in winter:

(A snow-covered Belvedere Castle in the distance in Central Park.)

(The Astor Court Chinese pavilion inside the MET.)

(Ducks on a partially frozen pond in Central Park.)

(View out my window of the Empire State Building in the snow.)

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T15:29:00.000-08:00

For all you lovers out there!

Mystic Seaport

2009-02-13T14:49:00.000-08:00

(La Amistad at Mystic Seaport)

Back in January after I got back from India (see how behind I am?), I went to Mystic Seaport, Connecticut for a reportage class. It was fantastic! Also, fantastically cold. It was snowing, the watercolors were freezing (fingers and toes too) but it was a great drawing experience. The amount of history in that small town is incredible, and the workers there are so ready to throw it all at you if you ask.

(La Amistad in the snow (with frozen watercolors!))

(Usually, Mystic is full of people who are keeping alive old New England traditions, but during the winter it's much quieter because there are no efficient heating systems available for the historic buildings. Fortunately we still were able to listen to a man play traditional sailor songs and sea shanties, and watch a blacksmith demonstration.)

Also, here are a couple figure drawings from the studio portion of the class.

(Looks a little like Cruella DeVille on the left, no?)

Trip to India: Day 9: Into the Jungle

2009-01-26T19:11:00.000-08:00

(First of all, I apologize that there was a 3 or 4 week delay in between the 8th day and the 9th day, but I am going to finish this thing if it's the last thing I do!)

Day 9:

(Cold on our way to the Periyar Preserve)

So for our last day in India, we decided to take full advantage of the fact that we were outside of a wildlife preserve and headed into the park at 6:00 in the morning. A jeep picked us up outside our hotel and we headed out towards the park entrance. The jeep was FREEEEEZING so we were all just compacted in on ourselves to keep warm.

As we made it closer to the preserve the sun was up and it was more manageable temperature-wise. Plus, we were all so excited that we were hanging out of the roof of the jeep anyways to see if we could find anything. The light was absolutely incredible as the fog started to burn off and the sun came peeking through the trees. Our driver made the first sighting of a herd of buffalo. I couldn't really see at all what he was talking about, because they were so far away, but when I finally looked at Stephen's photograph, all I saw were a few dots on the horizon. How our driver spotted that from the car I'll never know.

Tara made the next find of a nilgiri langur off the side of the road. It was so close and was just sitting there as we watched it. It was so amazing to see an actual wild animal. This thing you see in zoos and nature documentaries is just sitting there next to you, 10 feet away. Even more amazing was when we saw a langur leaping through the trees off at a distance a bit. When they're as close as the roadside one, you almost feel like it's been propped up waiting for you and gets a tip from the driver when you leave, but when you see them swinging and leaping through the trees, it's such an amazing thing to see.

We kept on driving down the mountain, deeper into the preserve, with our driver hanging out the front door of the car while steering to look for animals on the side of the road. We were all perched up on the open roof of the jeep staring intently into the trees. We saw all kinds of
eagles and parrots (bright green!) throughout the drive until we made it to the base camp-ish area. Here we had a nice meal, they put a bindi on each of our foreheads for New Years and we got with our guide to take us on the hiking trail.

(We stopped for a snack at a beautiful valley in a streambed where I painted with genuine, Periyar stream water!)

We went deep into the forest and saw evidence of elephants, deer, and bison that had passed through at some point, such as footprints or tusk marks in the sides of the mountain. We tried to be as quiet as possible (although the little screaming girl with us didn't get that memo) so as not to scare anything off. We saw a couple more langurs leaping through the trees. These ones looked humongus! It's crazy to think how many of these must actually be in this enormous preserve, and how impressive it is that we only see one or two. We didn't see anymore wildlife through the rest of the hike (although the little girl did scream out "LOOOOOK!!!!!" at one point. We all jerked around to see what she had found. "Earthworm!") but we saw some incredible views and hiked all the way to the top of a grassy hill that looked almost 360 degrees into a valley dotted with little blue flowers.

(Just look at the sinister stare on that little girl. You can tell she's up to no good.)

After a little break, we headed back down to the base camp. We had dinner (or lunch? I can't remember) before heading out in a little paddle boat into the lake. My brother and I are pretty much expert boat paddlers, so the ride was smooth and relaxing (no thanks to the two backseat drivers without the paddles in their hands...).

(Back at the base camp there was this hilarious little bird, about the size of a cotton ball, who must have been absolutely terrified, but just stayed in this screaming position for an absurdly long time)

We saw a kingfisher while we were out on the boat, but no monkeys, but when we got back to shore we saw a whole bunch of monkeys leaping around on the island we had just been near (bastards!). Again, though, it's pretty amazing to even see them off in the distance, so we watched them for a good hour or so before heading home.

On the drive back we were all hoping for that last little glimpse of a tiger riding an elephant across the road, or something like that, but no luck. We did see some gigantic squirrels, which look kind of like lemurs, and a several more langurs on the side of the road, just as close as before. Even though we didn't see a tiger, it's pretty amazing to actually be in a place where tigers are roaming freely and could pop out at any moment. Our guide, of course, had seen them many times. But the fact that there are only 28 tigers and some 60 leopards in the entire preserve makes it a pretty good bet that you're not going to see one unless it wants you to. The elephants, though...I mean, come on, those things are huge. Next time, though, I want to go on a deeper, multi-day hike so that I can get away from the touristy areas. I think that would be amazing.

Anyhoo, we headed back down into Thekkady and then back into Cochin to catch our flight home. We got a flat on the drive back (which I still say we could have patched with some rubber from the rubber trees on the side of the road), but we got to the airport with plenty of time. We said our goodbyes and boarded the plane back to Delhi. After that it was just a simple hop skip and a jump back to New York (by way of the ever pleasant Moscow, of course).

Of course, though, once in Delhi, our hopping, skipping, and jumping, hit a few snags along the way. We got onto the plane fine and I fell asleep within seconds of sitting down. I later woke up, feeling rested and refreshed, to see everyone clearing all of their stuff out of the overhead bins and getting off of the plane. "Perfect!" I thought, "I slept through the entire 7 hour plane ride and didn't even have to listen to take off or landing!" Not so. Turns out, after asking the charming flight attendant, that we had never taken off. Actually, all she said was "Delhi." But after asking some of the other passengers, we realized that we had never actually left Delhi, we had just driven around in circles on the runway for FOUR HOURS. Apparently, the fog was too thick for any planes to take off from Delhi, but instead of telling any of us, they just drove around twiddling their thumbs. We all had to be ushered back into the airport (with a coupon for one free drink at the snack station! (Which was nowhere to be found)) and wait until the fog cleared up. Well, the fog didn't clear up for another 9 hours or so, so we spent the night in the airport, but we finally left off and managed to make our flight in Moscow (because we originally had a 12 hour layover in Moscow...*shudder*) and back to New York.

We thought our troubles were over once we got back to New York, but no no, apparently all of the bags from the transfer flights had never made it onto the flight to New York. No one knew where they were. The Aeroflot attendant told us that sometimes, they just don't put the bags onto the new plane if they're from a transfer (what?). The Russian woman (who had left Russia) in front of us in line told us that she didn't trust the Russians and that they probably had just thrown our bags out after we left. Then about an hour later, they found all of the 50 or so passenger's missing bags (what? where had they been hiding 100 bags?) and brought them out to us. No harm done, I suppose, but I think that was the end of any future relationship between Aeroflot and I.

The trip to India was an incredible experience. It was unlike any place I have ever seen, and is something that I feel like I've only just scratched the surface of. I can't wait to go back to India, and to other places I've never been, and see just how different the world can be.

PS: Tarleen (baby steps), you have no idea how hard it was for me not to put the infamous coughing picture up here.

Trip to India: Day 7/8: Road to Periyar

2009-01-21T15:43:00.000-08:00

Day 7 Continued:

(Our goodbye to Noushad and Sayid. It looks like I have extremely long arms, and one of them is black and one is white.)

So I kinda cheated because this is actually still a continuation of Day 7 and then into Day 8. Day 8 has very few photos and drawings because we were getting Ayurvedic massages so there was a good amount of nudity that day, not suitable for blogging.

So after the elephants, we said goodbye to the Cochin area and headed up towards to Periyar National Park in the Western Ghats. The drive was a fantastic experience (Read my brother's detailed account of Indian driving: http://littlurl.com/4sj2q ). About 5 hours on a narrow, winding road high up into the mountains, all while listening to our drivers', Noushad and Sayid's, mix CD with Seal's "Crazy", Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me", "Smack dat" by Akon, some Malayalam song with the chorus "I hate you!", and of course, Barry Manilow's "Copacabana". Once the mix CD ran itself out after a few hours, Sayid sang us some traditional Malayalam songs, which were beautiful. When it came time for us to sing our "traditional" American songs my mom came up with "Silent Night" and I came up with "The Circle of Life" from the Lion King...oops!

As we drove higher into the mountains, the trees and the landscape began to change. It started to look like a real rainforest, which is something I have never seen before. Enormous banyan trees with slithering masses of roots, with a lacework of branches and vines leading up to the impossibly high canopy. It was strange, since we were so high up it was actually very cold up near Periyar. We passed through a bustling city of Thekkady which was hosting "Spicefest 2008" (which includes a ferris wheel)! Just driving through you could smell the overwhelming air of spices. After we haggled for a while to find our new hotel we settled in and then headed back into the city for dinner. Unfortunately the power had gone out, so the "suburb" area we were in was completely pitch black. We fumbled around by the light of Stephen's headlamp, through mobs of children hugging us and laughing and squealing, and finally made it to the restaurant. We took a tuk-tuk back.

Day 8:

We moved to a new hotel in the morning called the Coffee Inn, which was beautiful and had an incredible terrace which looked out over a stretch of grassland onto a beautiful grove of bamboo. All accross the view, dragonflies danced and flitted around like a scene out of Fern Gully. After a nice breakfast in the hotel, we went off to get our massages! For an Ayurvedic massage, they give you a nude, full-body, oil massage (including the top of your head!) Some of the others were a little iffy about the massage being completely naked, but I thought it was great. It was funny, though, they tie this little paper loincloth around you at the beginning, which really just makes you feel more naked than if you didn't have it on, especially since they untie it once you're on the table. Fig leaf doesn't change the fact that you're naked!

We left the massage all greasy and oiled up (because you're not supposed to shower for at least an hour). We ended up going out for New Years that way; we were a classy bunch. We shopped around the city for a while, and then decided to head back to the hotel before going to dinner. Stephen and I thought it would be a good idea to get a few beers for the celebration, so we asked the shopkeeper where we could get some. Turns out all of the stores up their prices on New Years, except for the government sponsored Civil Service where they're bound by law not to raise their prices. The shopkeeper gave us 1200 rupees to buy him some vodka when we got there, and we found a tuk-tuk and headed off to the Civil Service. We pulled up to it and there was a line of at least 40 or 50 people all waiting outside the window. Our tuk-tuk driver assured us it wasn't a problem and grabbed us by the arm and pushed us past all of the people to the front of the line. No one said a thing. Apparently, being a white tourist is like being VIP. We got the beer and then headed back to go out to dinner.

After a greasy dinner (us, not the food), we hadn't actually drank any of the beer except for one, so we decided to hand them out to strangers on the street (since everone was drunk and shouting anyways). We gave a couple to these two guys who were so touched they took us back to their office (turns out they were border guards for the park) and assured us they could get us into the park for a cheaper rate than we were getting. We exchanged a 15 minute round of introductions and handshakes (especially from the drunk man Tom, who introduced himself and shook our hands at 4 different times during the conversation. Happy New Year, Tom!) and then headed back to the hotel.

Happy Belated New Year!

Trip to India: Day 7: Elephants

2009-01-19T09:06:00.000-08:00

Day 7:

Finally the elephants!! When Stephen and Jasleen asked what I wanted to do in India, I didn't really have any idea, but the one thing I wanted to do was ride an elephant.

We headed up to the elephant training center higher up in the mountains where we were going to be able to wash some elephants (!!!). We parked and headed down a rocky slope to the

incredible riverside. The landscape looked like something out of National Geographic, it was so perfect. As we were all chatting and taking pictures, the family behind us started gasping and ooing and ahhing and we turned around to see the first of the elephants coming down the slope.

You don't get that many chances to be that close to an elephant in your daily life, and you forget how enormous they actually are. They move so gracefully and surely, it's an amazing sight to see. Especially the first elephant, the older female, who I developed a slight crush on. She had the most beautiful amber eyes.

She slowly slid down on her side into the shallow water and the trainers began scrubbing her skin with a halved coconut shell.

As they began to clean the female, 3 adorable babies paraded down the slope and into the water. Elephants are extremely alien creatures when you look at them for a long time. Their trunks are spotted and prehensile, like another limb. Their enormous feet bulge out from their comparatively puny ankles and on the soles of their feet are enormous craters like the surface of the moon. Their skin is so thick that when you push on it, it feels like a leathery wall. They have bizarre hair on their bodies which feels like how facial stubble might feel if you magnified it 1000 times. The babies, when wet, don't have the same majesty as the adults and look more like bizarre, leathery aliens.

Being next to these incredible animals was such a wonderful experience, and the way it was conducted was extremely Indian. Nothing like this would have been possible in the US. We had complete and total freedom with the elephants, and really no safety precautions or instructions. It was incredible.

(I love this photo because it looks like I was just out in the wilderness and happened to find this huge elephant to draw.)

After we were done washing we went back to the zoo area to wait in line to ride the elephant (!!!). Stephen and Jasleen weren't too enthralled with the idea of riding the elephant, but it's the one thing I needed to check off of my to-do list, so we were doing it whether they liked it or not! We climbed up a small staircase and all four of us slid gently onto the elephant. Again, you kind of forget how big elephants actually are until you're teetering up on top of one.

The ride is extremely wobbly and you feel like you're swaying dramatically from side to side (particularly my mom, who was determined to tilt herself off of the elephant (see photo)). The stubble-y hair I mentioned before turned out to be extremely painful if you're bright enough to wear shorts to ride the elephant. I probably wouldn't choose an elephant as my means of transportation for any long ventures, but I am completely satisfied that I finally got to ride it! Plus I even have a drawing from on top of the elephant, and how many people can say that!

(Not Pictured: Stephen's upper half)

Trip to India: Day 6: The River

2009-01-17T14:47:00.000-08:00

Day 6:

Our last real day in Cochin we decided to take one of their famed "backwater cruises" in which you get paddled into the narrow canals in the more rural areas of Cochin. Some people opt for multi-day houseboat cruises, but we just went for the single day experience.

First we met our guide, who had the most hilarious and bizarre emphasis on words when he spoke English. He spoke as if every tidbit he told us was the darkest, most mystical secret of Kerala. "Hello SIR! Listen close....can anyone!? guess this tree! in front of us!?........*imploring stare*................Nutmeg TREE!"

The trip began on a narrow canoe-like boat paddled by a lanky fellow with an enormous piece of bamboo, which he used to pull us along from the riverbottom. After the open mouth of the river we turned into the denser and narrower jungle canals. All the different plants are amazing to look at; it's like a wild botanical garden.

Our first stop was at a small cluster of houses where 3 women were spinning rope out of coconut fibers. Our guide tried to demonstrate how to weave the fibers using only your hands. He just kind of mashed his hands together and then voila! Turns out he had 3 other hidden hands twisting and braiding the fibers that we tourists just can't see. The stop here felt very strange to me, because these women are simply sitting around doing their work, and then boatloads of tourists swarm around them, pointing, staring, and snapping photos. The whole experience felt a little zoo-like, but it was neat to see, nonetheless!

t
(I feel like this looks like something out of Heart of Darkness)

We moved on back to the canoe and drifted down more of the winding canals. The sound of the water and the bamboo pole is so relaxing.

We came to our second destination where a family had set up and was drying coconut shells by the hundreds. There was the most adorable little boy running around so I sat down and he let me draw him. While I was drawing his father came over, so I had to draw him too. They were good sports about it, although the little boy kept asking for one of my pens. "1 pen, please!" I let him see it eventually, but then it didn't look like he was giving it back, so my brother finagled it back from him (you can see the pen in the man's hand in the picture of me crouching). While we were on the canoe another little girl shouted "1 pen, please!" to us. It was very strange. Maybe they have a severe lack of pens in backwater villages? I'm not sure.

We moved on, stopped for a coconut break where they hacked open a bunch of coconuts and we drank the milk out with a straw. Our guide was the one who had to strap his feet together with a piece of cloth and shimmy up the palm tree to get the coconuts. It was a pretty impressive feat.

After that, we grabbed a traditional Kerala lunch (which is various rices, curries, pickles, and chutneys served on a big banana leaf) and then headed onto one of the houseboats for an hour or so. The houseboat is just a bigger boat with a beautiful thatched roof overhead. We went back out to the wider part of the river, since the boat was bigger, and just kind of drifted along. Pretty much everyone on the boat just passed out, though.

(I'm pretty sure that Stephen copied this photo from my drawing. I won't hold it against him though.)

After that we went back to Cochin and had the BEST meal we had the whole time we were in India. For about 400 rupees for the four of us (about $8) we had a delicious meal with more than enough food for all of us. I got this bizarre calzone kind of thing with delicious flakey pastry-like bread on the outside and curried chicken and veggies and whatnot on the inside. It was incredible. If you are ever in Cochin, go to Dal Roti (spelling?). You won't be disappointed.

Trip to India: Day 5: The Sea

2009-01-16T08:41:00.001-08:00

Day 5:

(Noushad and Sayid teaching my mom to write in Malayalam, the language of Kerala)

We had originally planned to go see the elephants today, but our cab drivers ended up bringing us 2 tuk-tuks instead of a cab for the 2 hour drive, so we opted to do that another day and decided to go walk around the town since we were already up so early.

We headed down to the shore where the fishermen use enormous Chinese fishing nets. Even though it's not a great season for fishing, the men allowed us tourists onto the platforms to help pull the nets, see the fish, and make a little money in their downtime. The contraptions used to hoist the nets are ENORMOUS and beautiful, and the fishermen use them like extensions of their own bodies. Five of them pull on ropes towards the back of the platform to pull down an immense lever to pull the net out of the water. They let us have a go at it, and it's harder than it looks. Particularly because I'd imagine the 3 remaining fishermen had to do quite a lot of compensating for us during the pulling.

I slipped and fell about 3 seconds after this photo.

After breakfast, we called Noushad and Sayid again (our cab drivers) and they took us to the nearby Vipin Island to go to the beach. After a deathdefying tuk-tuk ride through the cities and backwaters on the island, we arrived at a beach resort area plopped down in the middle of miles of identical coastline where all of the beachgoers had gathered. Since we were in the water, there aren't really any drawings or photos of the beach, but trust me, it was nice. I had never been in the Arabian Sea before, but the water was absurdly warm. It felt good to be out in the sun again (although I'm sure my New York-white skin and future melanomas would disagree).

We made our way back at sunset, and ended up waiting in line to get back on the ferry to Cochin for a while, so I took out the watercolors and tried to paint on the dock. Jasleen and Stephen questioned my location choice and pointed out the swarms of mosquitoes and the dead feral dog and smelly garbage on the slope behind me, but art is made with suffering, goddammit!

So, after about 15 minutes of being mauled by the mosquitoes I fled back to the relative safety of the tuk-tuk.

Since it was Sunday (I think, or their big day might be Monday....I can't remember these things) there was a big celebration at the church when we got back to Cochin. The cathedral looked beautiful, covered with floating stars.

Trip to India: Day 4: More Cochin!

2009-01-15T07:34:00.001-08:00

Day 4:

We started out the day in our homestay with breakfast in the little treehouse hut on the roof and then went down to talk to the people who owned the homestay for a bit. These two were by far the nicest people I have ever encountered. They were also the first people I noticed performing the Indian head bob my brother had told me about. Indian people don't nod up and down like westerners, but side to side like a bobblehead. I think that these two were just so agreeable that their heads were bobbling from side to side for 80% of the conversation. She bid us all farewell with the most genuine hand-sandwich handshake and a kiss on the cheek and we headed into town.

For our first real day in Cochin we tried to take it easy and pretty much just went shopping at all of the Kashmiri craft stores. One thing I hadn't quite experienced was how everything in India can be bargained for. Taxi rides, hotels, food, nick-knacks, opium, etc. While we were in one of the shops I decided to try my hand at bargaining for these two little painted elephants (which probably should have cost about $5 or less for both). He asked me for my price (saying he'd give me a good price) and I ran over the calculations in my head. For rupees to dollars you double something...or half something and add some zeroes....and I suavely suggested "How about 1000 rupees for both?" Jasleen and the shop keeper started to laugh because apparently that's more like $20. So, I awkwardly started looking at something completely different, hoping to divert his attention from the American patsy in his store he could swindle. I ended up buying a sandalwood lion (which smells fantastic all the time!), which he probably significantly overcharged me for, but he let me feel like I had bargained him down, so everybody won.

That night we went to a presentation of the Kerala performing art "Kathakali" in which actors don elaborate costumes and make-up and perform, silently, stories Indian epics with precise eye, facial, and hand movements combined with intricate dance and a vocal and instrumental accompaniment.

The performance began with the process of the actors putting on their make-up, which took about an hour (or at least an hour that we saw). The vivid colors are made with various stones ground up into coconut milk or water to create a paste.

Combined with the make-up are elaborate costumes with giant hoop skirts and intricate headdresses. The different costumes and make-up colors (such as the black of the demoness below) suggest different character classes (divine, demon, female...).

Prior to the performance, the female character, Minukku, (also played by a man) gave a quick tutorial for us tourists about the importance of the hand gestures (mudras), emotive expressions (rasa), and eye movements.

The information came so quickly, and with such attention to detail, that it must take a lifetime to truly be able to read a Kathakali performance is it is meant to be understood.

Afterwards we saw a presentation of traditional South Indian dances performed by a few beautiful and talented girls.

Trip to India: Day 3: Into Cochin!

2009-01-06T03:24:00.000-08:00

Day 3:

Today we got ready to go meet Stephen and Jasleen in the south at the Cochin airport. We waited in the airport and on the plane a bit and then arrived in the balmy 90 degree heat of Southern India. Quite a stretch from the single digit temperatures back in New York we had left a couple days ago. We got our bags and then spotted two white faces and a sign saying "Turk Family :)" amongst the throng of drivers holding signs outside the doors. We hugged and laughed and whatnot and all got into the taxi that Stephen and Jasleen had come with. It was so nice to see both of them (they've been traveling around India and Thailand for several months now). It felt like the same "Turk Show" as in Colorado (same people, same jokes, same wacky hijinks) only this was the "Indian Holiday Special"! We met our drivers, Noushad and Sayid, and headed out towards the city. The drive from the airport to Cochin was incredible. Driving in Cochin (even moreso than in Delhi) is a carefully choreographed ballet with little 3-wheeled mopeds called "tuk-tuks," hoardes of people, and lots and lots of honking. I never really felt the disorientation of driving on the left side of the road because our drivers were on the right side (or in the middle) of the road just as much as the left. We passed by bustling market places, over enormous bridges, past rivers, and fishing boats, and rows and rows of palm forests. Finally we came into the center of Fort Cochin and back to the homestay Stephen and Jasleen had found the night before. In the "suburbs" of the city, all of the buildings looked like they had been plucked out of Swiss Family Robinson. The brightly colored houses were interwoven amongst the coconut palms with rope ladders and sprinkled with magical folded paper stars that they lit up for Christmas (Cochin has a very large Christian population.) We headed straight out so that we could try to catch the sunset on the beach. We came around the corner to find a perfect ruby circle hovering over the sparkling waters and the crowd of families on the beach.

As I was drawing, a crowd started to form again. Three little girls in particular would run over to me and watch me until I'd look over and smile at them and they'd giggle and run back to their families. This happened two or three times before Jasleen asked if it'd be okay if I drew them. So they exploded into giggles and nodded sheepishly and allowed me to draw them.

After the beach we walked into the town center and came to a super trendy restaurant for dinner. The town center has a very strange atmosphere because it feels like it could be in any urban-hippie enclave anywhere in the US (Boulder, Colorado comes to mind). There are cute little bookstores and cafes filled with white American hippies, and not a South Indian person in sight (save the shopkeeper.) I guess that's what comes with tourism! The restaurant we ate at was much the same thing, but had excellent food and a nice garden-like feel.

After dinner, we again, went back to the rooms and passed out.

Side note: I got up to pee in the middle of the night once and found a big gecko on the toilet seat.

Trip to India: Day 2: Delhi

2009-01-06T03:22:00.001-08:00

Day 2: (I forgot to get all of the pictures off of my mom's camera from Delhi, so I'll put those up later!)

We woke up after a few hours and took a look around the very chic and glamorous Hyatt Regency. Our room, and the hotel in general, had more mirrors than I have ever seen in one place before. In our bathroom, we had one mirror hung on a mirrored wall across from another mirror in the shower so that we could see ourselves no less than 10 times in one room. I'm assuming this is because us wealthy tourists like to look at ourselves a lot, much like a parakeet or a monkey. We had breakfast in the gargantuan dining room in which every surface was covered with marble, and again, had an entire fleet of people to help us. One to lift the lids on the buffet dishes, one to pour the juice, one to pour the water, two to check on us, one to bring us our check, and the manager to come by to make sure everything is to our liking.

Knowing very little about Delhi, we decided to get a taxi for the day to bring us to the only couple of places we had heard about. Once we hired the taxi, which turned out to be 1200 rupees for the entire day (about $25), we realized how badly we had been duped at the Hyatt for their airport taxi which had cost us $85 for about 15 minutes. Oops. Our cab driver, a friendly older man named Baldev, took us first to the Jama Masjid mosque in Old Delhi.

Cars are not allowed into the old city, so he found us a bicycle rickshaw man who took us to the mosque. The ride to the mosque was another extremely alien experience. As we got closer, we rode down a wide pathway with a makeshift market in the center, and a field of garbage, feral dogs, and garbage/feral dog-eating eagles. The market was our first real experience seeing the poverty in Delhi. Flies and mosquitoes swarmed everywhere around the emaciated dogs and crowds of people selling scrap metal, some type of meat, and other odds and ends. We pulled up to the stairs in front of the mosque and I felt as though every person we passed was looking at us (because in large part, most of them were. The mosque was oddly devoid of tourists, so we stuck out like a couple of pasty sore thumbs.) The mosque itself was less impressive than we had been expecting. It was one of those places that looks better in photographs. It all felt run-down, disheveled and somewhat abandoned.

From the first seconds on the steps to the mosque, every person we passed tried to get money in some way. People were begging on the stairs, or trying to get us to go into their hut-shops. At the top, a man told us we had to buy a ticket to use a camera (which I think, although we paid, was hooey, because no one was inside to actually look at the ticket...), could pay the man near the doorway to hold our shoes for us while we explored the mosque, and tried to get us to see his other friend about a tour of the mosque. We held our own shoes and walked around the mosque by ourselves. Inside, one of the previously mentioned adorable Indian children came up and started talking to me "What's your name?" "Where are you from?" "Do you have American coin?"

After we looked around, I plopped down in the center courtyardish area and started to draw. A few seconds later a gaggle of kids and surrounded me and started watching intently as I was drawing. Since they stood in front of the mosque, I started putting them into the drawing too, which really got them going. The kids were so cute. Some of them got very shy and bashful, while some of them just stared at me while I stared back at them. Soon their families and other families came and crowded around to watch me. After a bit, there was about 20 people (including one older woman who had pushed my mom out of the way so she could see).

We were all laughing and smiling and watching. It was an amazing experience because, for the first time at the mosque, I wasn't Mr. America Moneybags and they weren't trying to ask us for anything. We were all just smiling and watching each other.

After I finished my drawing, we stood up to go, and one of the men who had been watching walked with us back to our rickshaw trying to get us to come to his house to buy his jewelry. Oh well.

We hopped back on the rickshaw and headed to the Red Fort where we sat and drew for a little while, but didn't end up going inside.

After that, Baldev took us to the Baha'i temple in New Delhi. Here we found a completely different experience. The families here looked to be very wealthy, with all of the women wearing the brightest colored saris with the most intricate gold patterns and beading. The lines of people looked like streams of glittering gems leading up to the enormous white lotus flower that is the Baha'i temple. From the entrance on, the temple was another very strange experience. First, all of the people working at the temple were European or American. Second, we were not allowed to utter even a whisper once inside the temple. Third, we were not allowed to sit down anywhere on the grounds (even though there were many areas roped off for seating), and had to walk all the way back to the parking lot for me to be able to finish my drawing. The whole thing felt very much like a cult for urban hippies and Indian tourists.

After the temple, Baldev took us to a restaurant for dinner (which had the most fantastically tacky Christmas decorations!) and back to the hotel where we promptly fell asleep at five in the evening and didn't wake up until the next morning.

Trip to India: Day 1: Aeroflot and Delhi

2009-01-06T03:15:00.001-08:00

So for the past 12 days or so (the edges of the trip are a little blurry) I've been in India with my mom, my brother Stephen, and his girlfriend Jasleen. My mom and I started off in Delhi for one day and then went to meet Stephen and Jasleen in the city of Cochin on the southern coast. India was an incredible and strange experience and I hope you can get a sense of that through my day-by-day blog! I provide the drawings and commentary, and Stephen Jasleen & Co. provide the fantastic photos! Enjoy!

Day 1: We began our trip on the ever-friendly Aeroflot Russian Airlines whose slogan is "The World Smiles To You." Ironically, the flight attendants, and any of the workers in the Moscow airport, do not.

On the first leg of our flight, to Moscow, we saw a beautiful sunrise/moonset over the plane's wing. The water I used for the watercolor, though, turned a murky purplish black which raised a red flag for the security inspection after we got into the airport. The delightful security guard, who we'll call Natasha, took the bottle with the purple water in it, pointed at it, and said "Problem." and threw it away. We hung around in the airport for a couple hours.

My mom clearly enjoyed it as much as I did.

In the gate, however, we did see the first of many ridiculously adorable Indian babies.

We boarded the plane to Delhi, on which the passengers were surprisingly more boisterous than the workers in the airport. Everyone was walking around and chatting for a good portion of the flight and applauded rousingly when we landed.

Airports have a tendency to make all cities feel exactly the same. An airport is an airport. But in Delhi, even the airport was bizarre because we landed in the middle of the night, so there was a thick cloud of fog inside the baggage claim. (We'll come back to the fog later. I'm not even sure why there is so much fog in Delhi...it's nowhere near an ocean.)

Driving back to our hotel was a strange experience. We picked out our names on a silver placard from the Hyatt amongst a sea of other drivers and signs and made our way through the enormous parking lot. Because of the dense fog, we couldn't see past the edges of the road as we drove, so the landscape felt like a bizarre floating highway in the middle of a dimly-lit cloud. When we could catch glimpses of buildings, they had strange amber colored lights and chain-link fences which made it feel like we were in some enormous military base in the sky. We arrived at the Hyatt, which looked very much like an enormous penitentiary from the outside, had the hood, trunk, underside, and glove-compartment of the taxi checked, and proceeded inside. We were helped from the cab to our room by no less than 6 people (all of whom we probably should have tipped) and passed out for a few hours before hitting the town.

Random Figure Drawings

2009-01-05T06:46:00.000-08:00

Some random figure drawings I found from throughout the semester:

Night of the Dancing Flame

2008-12-22T22:23:00.001-08:00

Here is my final project for my animation class which was 10 seconds of whatever we wanted. Mine's a hamster doing a tribal fire dance in the forest, naturally. Enjoy! Music is "Night of the Dancing Flame" by Roisin Murphy.

Primates on Bicycles

2008-12-17T13:43:00.001-08:00

So here's the finished oil-painty version of the illustration of my brother and his girlfriend bike-riding in India (as a gibbon and a colobus monkey). Painting takes me forever! Incidentally, that's why there's only one painting instead of 3. In some ways I like the drawing better than the painting still, though...

Merry Christmas, Stephen and Jasleen! =D

Disturbia

2008-12-15T18:11:00.001-08:00

Finally! After 4 months of listening to this song on repeat, I finished my animatic for "Disturbia" by Rihanna! In the song, "Disturbia" is a physical place where her paranoid thoughts take control of her mind, and in this video, these paranoid thoughts manifest themselves as various horrible and terrifying encounters. In the end she realizes that these thoughts only exist in her mind and don't really have any power so she is able to be free. Enjoy!

Family Primates: Part 2

2008-12-10T23:41:00.000-08:00

Here is part 2/3 of the "My Family as Primates" series! This one is on it's way to being an oil painting too.

Pretty Woman

2008-12-09T12:40:00.000-08:00

Here's a painting from a model in class this week.

Garbage!

2008-12-07T21:15:00.001-08:00

For one of my classes we had an assignment researching where our garbage goes after we throw it out, and different ways of exploring the idea of garbage artistically. The final part of the project, for me, was to do a series of reportage illustrations in NY with the trashcan in the foreground encouraging citizens to actually use the trashcans, since there is one on nearly every street corner. This is the poster for Union Square. This was also probably the coldest 2 hours of my life. The wind today was out of control!

I Believe!

2008-12-03T17:01:00.000-08:00

New animation of a commercial for a holiday fashion line (it says Saks Fifth Avenue, but really I just couldn't think of a designer or department store that was more fitting...). The concept for the assignment was "unknown--->known" so I decided to break down the woman at the end into a series of abstract patterns in the beginning.

A tribute to fellow Thanksgiving weekend travelers

2008-11-30T21:28:00.000-08:00

Since I spent a lot of time this past weekend in transit, in airports and on the subway, here are some drawings of all the other exhausted people traveling somewhere last weekend!

On the subway

On the way to the gate

Suitcases

Moving Walkways

Waiting for the plane to board

In the terminal

Mother/Son Snow Reportage!

2008-11-28T22:39:00.000-08:00

(me)

My mom and I have been planning for our trip to India this winter, and we've gotten all excited about the idea of doing reportage there, so today we went out and decided to do a little reportage at the beginning of a snowstorm here in Colorado.

We started before going to see Madagascar 2 (adorable) and drawing the Christmas lights our neighbors had just put up (on their eagle sculpture in their front yard).

(mom/me)

It was only just beginning to snow when we went into the movie, and 2 hours after we came out the cars were covered in 2 or 3 inches of snow. So after clearing off the car and driving home, we decided to head out and do some "drive-by" reportage around the neighborhood.

(mom/mom/me)

By the time we got outside, it had actually just stopped snowing, but the sky was still bizarrely light with the clouds. While we were parked in one location two coyotes ran right in front of the car. You don't get that, drawing in Manhattan!

(me)

Madison Square Park

2008-11-16T14:06:00.001-08:00

Hurray! I have been working on this painting for almost 2 months now and it's finally done. *whew* It's a view of Madison Square Park and the Flatiron building way back in the distance.

Equal Rights/Anti-Proposition 8 Rally

2008-11-16T09:44:00.001-08:00

On Saturday I went down to the gay rights rally down at City Hall. It was so inspiring to see how many people showed up for the event! The whole thing had a very hopeful, and more importantly, very active energy to it. I hope to see more rallies like this in the months to come, especially with Obama getting into office. It was great, too, because the weather was dismal up until around 1:00 when the rally started and then the sun came out and it was a beautiful fall day.

Musician and some more musicians. And a thingy.

2008-11-14T12:59:00.000-08:00

First we have an oil painting of a man playing guitar from my painting class the past two weeks.

Next are some more guitarists who were playing outside the subway station in Union Square. For drawing we were supposed to arrange figures in a space, without
any environment, to try and show space.

Finally, there was this exercise where we copy the shapes of an aerial view of a city and turn it into whatever we want. Mine kind of looks like some Seussical aerial city or something.

Masquerade and Family Primates

2008-11-11T18:31:00.000-08:00

First we have a new animatic for a commercial advertising a masquerade ball on Halloween at the MET (and the storyboard).

Next is part 1 of my painting final project, which will be 3 paintings of my family as primates. I had fun with the first one, of me as a gibbon, so now here are 2 bike-riding primates in India!

Color Leopard

2008-11-07T15:17:00.000-08:00

Here is a colored version of the leopard from last Friday!

Statue of Liberty

2008-11-01T15:41:00.000-07:00

So I was a tourist for a day today and went to see the Statue of Liberty for the first time! I'm working on a poster with the statue in it, so I went to do a little reportage first. It was an absolutely beautiful day; some of the colors on the trees were just unreal!

Leopard and Bushpig

2008-10-31T14:14:00.000-07:00

We went to the Natural History Museum to draw one of the dioramas today, and I chose the leopard and the bushpig. Throughout the time I was drawing, families kept coming up to the diorama, and no matter what language they were speaking it was "Blah blah blah blah bushpig." I was really starting to like the word "bushpig" after a few hours.

Frankenstein at Magnolia Bakery

2008-10-29T19:07:00.000-07:00

Another Frankenstein drawing! This time we were supposed to put Frankenstein (or Dr. Frankenstein) in a modern NY setting. I chose to put him across from Magnolia Bakery, celebrating his birthday alone with a cupcake.

Self Portrait

2008-10-25T07:54:00.001-07:00

So for my painting class, we were supposed to create an illustration of ourselves as any animal we wanted! I chose a gibbon (because who doesn't love a gibbon?) who is eating dumplings (my favorite food) and clearing away a spot in his mess of a room to draw. He stole my glasses and my pen, too...Now for this week, we are making an oil painting of the same composition.

South Street Seaport

2008-10-20T12:14:00.000-07:00

Here are a few drawings from the South Street Seaport from this morning. There is such perfect fall weather right now!