"Restoring a Past, Charting a Future" at Mystic Seaport

I am proud to announce that I am participating in an upcoming show at Mystic Seaport as a part of Dalvero Academy called "Restoring a Past, Charting a Future". You can see a preview of some of the wonderful art and learn more about the show here:

http://dalveromystic.com/

It is a group of 24 artists who have been documenting the restoration of the last wooden whaling ship in the world, The Charles W. Morgan, and the art that came out of that study and research.

Inspired by my friend and fellow Dalvero-er, Alex Charner, I'll be posting some drawings from Mystic that I've done that will not be at the show. Check out his beautiful daily posts here:

http://alexcharner.com/

As well as Julia Sverchuk's fantastic drawings from Mystic here:

http://juliaidrawings.blogspot.com/

Seattle: Pike Place Market

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

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

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!

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

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!

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.