Holiday Times - Part 1

it's been an unseasonably warm winter in NYC.  This should not be sprouting in the yard in December

gave a talk to seniors at FIT in Richard Elmer's class.  They look thrilled

one of the only guys in NYC that makes copies of skeleton keys in Greenwich village.

holiday party white elephant mystery gift giving

this tree should have been $85 but we got it for $65.  Not upstate new york prices for sure.

Niku Jyaga is the dish that Japanese girls are supposed to learn to woo guys.  Delicious glass noodles in there too.  Tried making sweet potato rice too

if you're a true good little Japanese chef you're supposed to use a parring knife and cut all the corners off the potatoes so they stay nice and rounded and don't break up.  I did not take that extra crazy Japanese detailed step.

time to paint the year of the monkey painting

I’ve illustrated and mailed out a traditional Japanese new year postcard every year since I lived in Tokyo.  They usually feature the zodiac animal of that year.  2016 is the year of the monkey 申.  Persimmons and monkeys are in a lot of Japanese folklore.  The post office magically delivers all the new year’s cards (nengajo 年賀状) on January 1st.  The top right says its the 28th year of the Heisei era (Japan’s special numbering system for years) and below that is the special character only used for the year of the monkey 申 (not the same as the everyday character for monkey 猿).  The bottom basically says happy new year.  This is the one time a year I take the time to paint totally analog without photoshop.  It’s a bummer that the digital color sketch I did in 1 hour looks cooler than the actually painting.  Also as usual the real painting looks cooler in real life than what can be captured and shown online.  Reach for the moon in 2016! 

Sea Witch is a pretty cool place in South Park slope.  There are koi and a turtle in a pond with a stream, a big saltwater fish take at the bar that I could stare at for hours.