olechko

Here’s the last addition to the party around the table I have been working on this week. It have been such fun exercise (escape from February flurries) I hope to continue on the theme for a bit longer.

oil on panel 15×15 cm, SOLD

Please email me if you would like to commission a similar piece.

A busy street around the corner from my friend’s place where we stayed  in DC the other week. The blue newspaper box is of the famous Washington Post. A dog is tied to the dust bin while the owner popped into the store to get some food. Another piece where I experiment with technique.

oil on panel 15×15 cm

Please email me if you would like to own this piece (at $75 USD).

Another glance at the  notorious crossing of the streets in Georgetown.  Don’t remember the name of the bank – it changed hands several times.

oil on panel 15×15 cm

Please email me if you would like to own this piece (at $75 USD).

This is one street up from my Kyiv apartment, just as you turn off Yaroslaviv val to go towards Ploshcha Peremogy.  The stark contrast of light on the street just washed with rain caught my attention. (a better quality  pic to come when the picture dries up so I can scan it).

2008 oil on panel 15×15 cm

Please email me if you would like to own this piece (at $75 USD).

Copic marker and ink pen in Moleskine
Please email me your bid (starting at $45) if you’d like to own any of these pieces.

Decided to come back to my doodles, quite a few have accumulated since I last posted any here. Oh, and save the date to visit the upcoming show of one of my oils:

ING Discerning Eye opens in London from

13 – 23 November 2008
The Mall Galleries
The Mall
London SW1 Y5BD

Separately about Catalan food: with omelettes served every hour of the day, instituted two breakfasts and very-very  late dinners offering tapas of beans, potatoes and seafood, pan con tomato, manchego cheeses.  For drinks it was the  local bubbly Cava or Rjoha and sometimes sangria , as well as local beer Moritz – all yum!  Had a great time packing myself with  salads like nicoise, great cheese plates, and bocadillos ( with honey and brie and walnuts, brie and tomato with olive oil and lettuce..)  Best food experience we had was at  Cava Fumada in Barcelonetta.  Fine dining experiences were not as memorable, on average the food seemed a bit too greasy with all the pork sausages and all… Maison Jesus and a small place in Gerona (that I don’t remember the name of) were very good.  Almost every single chiringito on the Barcelonetta beach served great shade, view of the sea, drinks and snacks.  It was pleasant to find out the city full of ancient established farmers’ markets where the locals usually stock up for the week.

Katherine Tyrrel at Making the Mark pointed out at the show of entymology illustrators exhibit at Getty.

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.

I wanted to go home after a few hours of it. Getting lost on the metro, ending up in Jamaica and then soaking wet under the chilly rain helped that a lot.  When over at the friends house just across the river in Queens, the magnificent view of Manhattan helped put things in perspective though.

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.

Looking for a fine dining experience, Yuri Uzzband and me came to Korona Vitovta – the best restaurant in Lutsk, standing right at the door of the Lubart castle.  It  all started well, the funnest part came with the bill. at the dinner.  We had one glass of wine each,  and the bill modestly displayed six of each ?! ‘Funny,” thought I and went asking about this number 6. “The foreigner (Yuri) asked for a “big” glass of wine,” explained Luda (our waitress).

By now you (who spent some time in Ukraine) all know  that Ukrainian menus like to trick you with items priced by grams, and then the waiters take the liberty at judging how many of those grams your wallet can handle.   Luda’s stab at this problem exceeded all expectations: 6×50=300 grams of wine. “Why didn’t you bring us the whole bottle in that “big” glass?” we asked, very annoyed. “You should have declined the glass when you saw it was 300 gram”. “Forgot my measuring cup at home,”  I defiantly thought. The worst part was that the wine in question was flat. Be on guard if you see too many kinds of wine by the glass in the menu. It could have been sitting open for months, like ours did.

Appalled at this Luda’s lame attempt to trick us, we demonstratively payed the $25 per glass, promising we’d tell every expat to avoid the place. So now you now.  Btw, with the quick poll via blackberry among his “high-flying” friends Yuri Uzzband concluded, that $25 per glass could  cost at only other place in the word – the Beverly Hills Hotel bar!