olechko

Dog Bulya, oil on gessoed board 7×7 inch 2008

This little painting is part of my favorite plush toy portrait series. We were watching a children’s video Auntie Owl and the dog character there was named Bulya. For now every plush dog in the house is called Bulya. The book in the background here is Liza and Her Dreams by brilliant Ukrainian children’s book illustrator Gapchinska.

Please send your bid by email if you want to purchase this painting.

Just got back from a week long vacation in Barcelona. So much to share: some great architecture, interesting quirky art and local designers.

Check out menchen Tomas (women’s) on c/ rec. 46 and Oscar H. Grand (men’s) on c/barra de ferro 7 for bespoke tailoring. Oscar does his work straight from the shop floor to the coolest music on his ipod. Next door Popi Jabiansky exposes his Pietro della Francesca inspired art at a local internet cafe. (I loved it because I did a similar take on my rents’ portrait several years ago).

Besides there were great local food (pan con tomato and potato/beans/etc. tapas) drinks (rjoha and cava - the catalan bubbly) as well as the Spanish Gothic and Gaudi architecture. My friend Wendy will write a more extended review of this trip on her travel blog and I will link here here soon to give you more detail.

15×15 cm, oil on board, 2008, private collection

Continuing here the theme of Ukrainian church domes. It’s a real pleasure to paint this beauty.

I caught a cold, as well as the baby, and a bit under the weather, not producing as much as I should a week before my first show.

Katherine I Hardy - a new artist who’s work I like. She illustrated the Great Gatsby and got her degree from RCA.

15×15 sm, oil on board, 2008
This is one of the impressions from yesterday’s day trip the old wooden one, and a new built right next to  it.  The view on both of them is spectacular as you are coming back from Derman’ over the hill and down very steep descent into the valley. I can only imagine what it will look like when the greenery appears.

We visited three different monasteries in Volyn region today.

The roads leading to the places are bad, lack signs and general depressive ruin of the countryside surrounds everything. Preferred means of transport there are horse-driven carriages. During the summer nature hides all this in much more attractive greenery.

Derman’ dates back XV-XVII century and hosts a lovely woman’s monastery, two churches, a holy well, with ancient row and mot around it. Besides the monastery, an old school, that produced Ulas Samchuk- renowned writer and journalist.

Horodok outside of Rivne sits on an island, old Ukrainian baroque church dates back 1740. The new monastery cathedral has fantastic new wooden decor inside and the warm” church” has a great private feel to it.

Biliv is the youngest women’s monastery of the three, from 1972, owns a fantastic wooden church, and is the hardest to get to.

On the way back we ate at an established inn called Sophia, outside of Rivne. The kinds of place where the local newlyweds come for their photo shoots complete with pretty exotic garden, tennis courts, hotel, solid restaurant and even a recently added live music venue.

15×15 cm, oil on board, 2008, private collection
This is a view from my parent’s new house window. Since it’s a new development, part of the land is still being used for potato while other plots are built up with million-dollar mansions. Thirteen years later after starting with this house, we are still using dirt road to get here.

Check out two more funky Ukrainian illustrator artists on flickr: Sheplusleo and Taz_coma

15×15 cm, oil on board, 2008, private collection

As pepole were coming from the service, the winter night was settling in, I peeked though the main gate at the church to see this perfectly framed picture. The architecture of the place is typicall Ukrainian Baroque with a  hint of Renaissance.

15×15 cm, oil on board, 2008, private collection

A very cool artist Diana Navarette came to my flickr page; I was happy to find out she makes great expressive portraits.

15×15 cm, oil on board, 208, private collection

So we went out to Lutsk for the week. The ride was exiting, to say the least. As we were approaching our destination - in a village before Lutsk - the driver took us off the bus, ’cause his buddy warned him on the phone him the police was waiting for him at the station. I don’t think the guy did anything wrong, the police seems to be after every marshrootka in town, but having to switch to a local bus to make the last five minutes of your five-hour ride is a bit extreme. Here’s the back of the driver looking at those typical Ukrtelecom phone booths at the Kyiv vokzal just as were boarding. Hardly anyone is using them these days. It’s a shame, they are of such fantastic color! They usually serve the orientiers for marshrutkas at vokzal to line up there by dozens and offer to take you in almost every little town around Ukraine.

I am home for New Year’s - in Lutsk. The town is tiny and cozy, and has an old town that’s worth checking out. We picked a very gray and cold day to explore it, feels cold just from looking at pictures:

This is a residential street with old small houses leading up to the catholic cathedral. An old german cathedral on the very left now houses a baptist church, I think.

This is the Lubart castle in Lutsk - dates back XV c. or so and is comparatively well preserved. The pretty building up font is the local fancy restaurant Korona Vitovta that’s worth stopping by at (not any more! see my review above). The tree on the left is called Lesya Ukrajinka tree (Lesya was a prominent Ukrainian poet in nineteen hundreds and may have planted it).

Inside the castle there is a museum of bells in the tower on the left, museum of first book printing in the handsome building next to it and a gallery of art - in the white building on the very right. There used to be a cathedral in the middle where you see excavation works roofing now.

Besides a new place for drining good beer opened at the beginning of main pedestrian street - Bravyi Shweik. The decor is solid, full of tv screens showing the oddest videos: this time it was extracts from bad Elvis movies, where he’d always play the singer of the band. It is the season for mulled wine (usually called Glutwein in Ukrainian on the menu). As well as great time to meet my college girlfriends who all live out of town and come home just for holidays.