Painting Puffins

These are the color comps for "Jupu the Puffin". 

Jupu is a puffin from Maine who loves food, traveling and meeting new friends (sounds like me! Minus the Maine part)

Spending my Saturday night working on this little dude. Excited to finally get started on the final art for this book!

Sporting a Sock Tan: It's Finally Spring

It's finally spring and I have some pretty terrible tan lines to prove it. Before I get into my awesome run today, here's a little bit about last weekend's long run.

Ran the 4 mile NYRR Run for Parks race, which was also a "Run for Boston".

After the race, made my way to Citi Field to meet up with my dad, my little sister and my cousin to enjoy some family bonding time over baseball and beers.

I still had to get in some extra miles for the day, so ran 6 miles in Prospect Park. 

It was absolutely beautiful. 

Now for today's run...

Covered 11 miles, 90% of which was completely new to me. It was pretty rad to discover some new gems in Brooklyn...

I knew I would be exploring a new route today so I decided to break out the Camelbak and packed some energy chews (which were DE-friggin'-LICIOUS!) While I dig the Camelbak for hiking, I found it sucks for running. It tore my neck up within the first 3 miles. But I'm tough, so on I went.

After leaving my neighborhood I quickly found myself in a predominantly Hasidic neighborhood... on Shabbat. As I ran through the empty streets (they don't drive on Saturdays) it reminded me of NYC's Summer Streets... but with beaver hats. I felt a little out of place in my little running shorts, so out of respect, tried to run out of there as fast as I could.

Ran through Sunset Park. Haven't been here in a long time, almost forgot how beautiful it is. And the VIEW! I need to come back here more often. After exiting the park, all I wanted to do was get to the water.

 

I thought this tree was pretty.

Ran past the Brooklyn Army Terminal. Just as I was about to exit the area, I saw this sign... 

so I went to explore the pier.

Kiss and Sail... aww...

Glad I decided to check this out! Beautiful view. Lots of people fishing. I miss fishing. That's another item on my ever-growing "2013 Summer Fun List".

 Found myself at the American Veterans Memorial Pier.

As I reached the pier, I was greeted with a little piece of "home". The smell of ocean in the air, the sound of the water lapping at the shore, the cool breeze soothing my hot skin... it was heaven. As a Long Island native, the water does something to me. It wakes up my soul. I smiled, took off my headphones, enjoyed the sounds of the sea and ran on towards the bridge.

There it was. The Verrazano Bridge. The starting point of the NYC Marathon. I just recently signed up for this year's race, so I'll be running over that bridge in November. This will be my first marathon so I'm excited and terrified. I couldn't help but think about it during the last 3 miles of my run. I was feeling a little intimidated...

but then I saw this sign. 

And I smiled.

Thoughts From Brooklyn to Boston

I don't think I can fully comprehend the heartbreaking events that took place today at the Boston Marathon. An explosion, at a... marathon? The Boston Marathon? Reality is refusing to sink in.

All day I was filled with pride and excitement for my fellow Prospect Park Track Club teammates that were braving 26.2 miles of Boston pavement. My coworker, Chris and I tracked our teammates online, exchanged running stories and shared our excitment for the people we knew running in Boston.

Then came the news: An explosion at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. 
Those words. Creating one complete sentence. Impossible.

A day that was meant for pride and accomplishments, for congratulations and unity, for dedication and hard work to all come to fruition, was now a day of devastating news reports and heart breaking images. Instantly my heart sank to my feet. My God... my teammates...

I realized in that moment that the individuals on this running team are not just people I train with. They're not just people who wear the same red and white shirts on race day. They're not just people with whom I share the love of running. These runners are more than runners.
They're my family.

Thankfully, all of PPTC was safe and accounted for.

But not all were so fortunate. With reports coming in of lost life and limbs, I can't even put into words how heartbreaking this is. As a runner, my heart is so heavy. My thoughts and prayers are with Boston and our running community.

Fun Times On Long Runs

Training has started for the Brooklyn Half-Marathon, which means I get to have some extra fun while running. Typically, I never listen to music or carry anything w/ me, but for long runs, I make an exception. There's so much awesomness to explore here in this great city, so it's fun to be able to capture it on foot. Here's what I saw today...

Today's Route: 9.16 miles (closer to 10, I kept forgetting to restart my watch)

 

Within the first 2 miles, I spotted two PPTC teammates, Gary Purdy and Karen Ziga (left) on the outskirts of Prospect Park. Karen stopped to chat for a bit, she's running Boston on Monday, SO stoked for her! 

Ran into the lovely Kristen Ball on Union Street in Carroll Gardens (center). What's funny about this meeting is that, while I know Kristin from TGC, we recently spent two weeks serving on grand jury at the same time. What makes this EVEN funnier, is that while we were chatting it up, we heard a voice call out next to us... and there was Kings County's own Assistant District Attorney, Rob Isdith (right) who we spent two weeks w/ on jury! If you ever serve grand jury, you'll see a lot of him. Small world, Brooklyn. 

Onward down Columbia Street to the Waterfront and Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Over the Brooklyn Bridge (swoon). I always get that good ol' fashion "falling in love" feeling whenever I run over this bridge.

 Down to South Street Seaport...

 ...and finishing off at Battery Park. And what's that in the distance?

 Why, it's a Vane tugboat and barge! Hey fellas! (I work part-time at Vane).

 I ran back in hopes of snapping a photo of them by the bridge. Success! Also ran past former PPTCer, Helen Dole on the way back to the subway.

 Stopped to literally smell the roses. Hey, I'm a girl, I'm a sucker for flowers.

 Snapped a shot of the Freedom Tower before heading into the subway.

Just when I thought this awesome morning was over, I hopped on the F train and came across Divine Interventions. Literally, that's the name of these two talented musicians. Take a listen!

I loved the song choice, considering I host Free Fireworks Fridays, a summer group run to Coney Island to watch the free fireworks show every Friday night.

9 (or more) miles logged and a great start to the day. I wonder what I'll run into next week...

I'm Still Here!!

Just been super busy... will be providing a ton of updates soon - stay tuned!

"Crooked" For Illustration Friday

Llama's have crooked teeth, sometimes.

Jupu Sketches

Finished up sketches for "Jupu the Puffin" this weekend. Here are two of the spreads.

Every Once In A While...

... I need a break from drawing cute fuzzy bunnies and paint things like this hyena hybrid skeleton thing I made today. Mixed media on the back of a tracing paper pad.

 

Killing Time While Waiting For Coffee to Brew

Sketches from Paris, France

 

Fontaine Saint-Michel 

 

My french cheat sheet and a sculpture at the Musée d'Orsay.

 

Sculpture at the Louvre.

Sketches from Jerusalem, Israel

 

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

 

The Western Wall on Bar Mitzvah Day

 

View of the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock and the Mount of Olives.

נְקֻדָּה לְמַחְשָׁבָה

Food for Thought. That's what the title says in Hebrew. I recently returned from an incredible trip to Jerusalem and Paris. One of my favorite things to do while traveling is to dive into the local food!

While we have Aroma Coffee here in the city, I think it tastes better in Israel. 

 

 On our first day in the market, better known as "The Shuk", I dove right in, tasting everything. 

My favorite flavor was a spice called Za'atar which can be sprinkled over bread. 

 

 The Shuk was filled with all kinds of goodies. The colors were beautiful.

  

Most amazing hummus EVER!  

On our 4th day, our tour guide introduced us to Israeli bagels. Each bagel comes with a little baggie of Za'atar. WIN! Za'atar is made with salt, spices and hyssop, which if you remember from Sunday school, was an important plant. It was used to wipe blood over the doorway of the first passover and is also stated as the branch on which a wine soaked sponge was given to Jesus on the cross.

 

I really love this stuff. I brought some home for myself and a couple friends in the restaurant biz.

 

The same day we had lunch at the Austrian Hospice in the Muslim Quarter (The Old City is divided into the Jewish, Muslim, Arabic and Christian Quarters). While we ate, the call to prayer could be heard ringing through the streets, it was pretty surreal. I ate whatever this was, I can't remember...

  

Clearly, I hated it...

 

On the 5th day, I finally ate my first Israeli falafel...

 

and later topped it off with an Israeli beer in the Old City.