Got tips for ya!

Alright folks, there was nothing too special about this week, but the one thing i enjoyed doing the most is the drawing above, and as it was a fairly easy coloring process i decided to do my first coloring on Photoshop tutorial, which i just finished so is "fresh from the oven" hehe

The picture above is self explanatory so click on it for full view!

And finally this is the final product! This is from a animation series called Bleach, which is awesome BTW.

Not much more to add this time!

Cheerios!

The beauty of variety!

Well so now with the recipe i decided to go with something very, very simple. So i was at work the other day making a chicken sandwich with avocado and sweet chilly sauce (which BTW is a beautiful combination) and i told my colleagues that in Brazil we eat Avocado with lemon and sugar, or that we blend it with milk and sugar for a creamy morning smoothie. Of course i was aware that in here they were not used to mix avocado and sugar on the same dish and it's basically a cultural thing. For the people of NZ as for a lot of people around the world Avocado, even though is a fruit, goes well for salads or like guacamole, which is typically Mexican but known around the entire globe nowadays. Getting to Mexico and trying avocado with salt and seasoned like salad was the first time for me, and it brought a whole different possibilities on those terms.

The recipe for what is in the pic above is as i said, very simple, get yourself a avocado, cut in half, scoop the "meat" out in a plate, squeeze some fresh lemon juice on top spread some sugar to your taste and vous-a-la, it goes beautiful as a sweet dish as much as it goes well as a salad.

I felt that it was important to address something simple like this for i think that the variety of ways and things to taste, see, listen, makes us interesting from one to another, and is definitely important to keep your mind open for trying things like this avocado, i for one have tried everything regarding food that anyone has offered me so far, and trying a traditional dish on the countries i passed by was necessary to complete my experience while being there!

cheers 

One thing   

The geometrical shapes of art!

Hya there folks a tad late this week but here it is my post, and as i posted on my Facebook for the fact that this post is late, i have some tips on how to draw(which is the first of many to come) followed by a little recipe.

Ok so what i mean by this title is that there's always simple geometrical forms and shapes hidden within even the most complex of drawings, and if u want to get better at it the first thing u should be doing is taking notice of it.

First thing is remember when u were a kid and u would draw a man or a house with simple straight lines?! Believe me when i say that in that sense anyone, and i mean even Leonardo da Vinci starts the same way. That is called structure, at first you have to come up with a basic structure from whatever you're thinking of drawing because the basic will lead u to a final drawing with better proportions, plus structures so to speak are meant to be soft lines that when it comes to the end, depending on the style of drawing u have, will not show relevant expression and the main lines will have more or total strength therefore become=ing more noticeable.

Take the sketches on top and notice how all the elliptical, circles, squares and triangles form the body of the different characters on action moves, with a sketch like that u'll be able to have a glimpse of what the final will be.

Now these ones on top are more "final" sketches, but i marked hard some of the structuring lines so u can see where the drawing is coming from.This is a basic rule for drawing, the better u get at this the less lines u'll need to use for this first part, some artists reach a point where is possible to start the drawing straight from the main lines, what happens in that case is that they've become so comfortable with the structures that those never leave their heads, but i can guarantee u that on their free time they'll still do some random sketches with structures in order to keep them sharp with it. So as a tip i'll tell u to practice, with pictures, either photos from books and magazines, comic books, manga whatever it is that u like study the picture u choose and try to reproduce the geometrical forms in it, investigate the simple lines so u can fully reproduce the drawing, and while doing that u also compose a certain data in your mind from what u drew. 

Cheers!

The Italian side!

So as promised here it is my first "every Tuesday" post (for now).

This will be the third recipe i'm posting here a very easy and delish pasta sauce, one of my favorites:

"Penne ai quattro formaggi"

Pasta is something great, for all the different kinds there is plus all the various combinations of sauce and cooking techniques, there's just so much to do with!

La cucina Italiana is one of my main bases as a Chef, in part for my backgrounds, but i truly believe that all  cooks and chefs have an Italian side within. Both French and Italian cuisine are so vastly known, used and eaten world wide that most of us have some of that on us.

As for the Pasta my choice on the picture was Penne, but you can choose anything you like or even make your own pasta. Fresh pasta is very easily made and making your own can be very rewarding if the result is really good; to make your own you need:

-1 egg for every 100gr of flour and a pinch of salt

Basically u shape your flour like a volcano and in the middle put your egg(s), whisk them lightly and start mixing all of it together until u get a ball of pasta dough. If u want u can chop (very fine, no chunks) some fresh herbs like basil, parsley, rosemary and so on to add to the mix for flavor, or even other veggies or leafs, very common are, spinach (to make it look green) and tomato ( to make it look orange red ish), on the case of tomato u should use the tomato purée and perhaps add some flour until you get a dry dough!

Sauce Quattro formaggi:

-

• 5 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 4 cups milk
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 50 gr of blue cheese
• 80gr of Parmesan
• 50gr of Gruyère 
• 50gr cheddar

   This sauce starts with a simple Bechamel which is simply put as a neutral white sauce. 

   Start off by heating the milk almost to boil and melting the butter on a pan with medium to low heat u can even add some finely chopped onions for flavor, but cook them only till they're transparent, or melt the butter without letting it color. Once the butter is melted mix the flour in,  and when all's mixed add little by little the  hot milk stirring well until it gets smooth, it should still be a bit runny if it's not add a bit more milk and grate the nutmeg on top of it. One by one put in the Cheeses always stirring, this is a thick sauce and the cheeses tend to go to the bottom of the pan and when not stirred they'll burn down there, also you should know that the choice of cheeses above is my personal selection, i would suggest for you to stick to the blue cheese and the Parmesan cuz they're the most characteristic of this sauce, but i reckon the others u can choose your own.

The final result should be a nice slightly thick sauce full in flavor, try it and if you feel as though u need a bit more seasoning then correct with salt, if you're asking why would i say this only at the end, then the reason is, when dealing with cheeses always correct the salt at the end, after all some cheeses already have a high concentration of it!

I hope this was easy enough for ya, if u try this the go ahead and tell how did that go!

cheers, c ya next Tuesday!

Strive to better yourself!

drawing done by Felipe Barros

So here we go again, not much to say for now, work is good, i'm enjoying the fact that i'm back to having a reason to wake up, a couple more months and i reckon i'll be on track, doing all my regular stuff, such as biking around(once i have the money to buy my bike), drawing more regularly, going to the gym and a bunch of other stuff.

Is always good to keep in mind your goals and keep it going to ever step forward towards all things you'll set yourself to do, i def want to improve and continue to do my drawings, which has always been my main hobby and one of my ways to define who i am, pretty much the main one up until i started my gastronomy/culinary arts school which now is the main definition of me; a Chef.

Not long after i came to New Zealand, i found out that Le Cordon Bleu is opening a school in Wellington next year, and now that has become my main goal, save up money and go through one of their courses. For those that don't know LCB is the most traditional school of culinary arts there is, great names of this field passed by it, and i know that it would be quite a life changing experience to attend to any course there, almost certain to get a job anywhere around the world.

To finish it off, i decided on having one day to post something, once a week which will give me enough time to work on some material, this is only one step to discipline myself i'll start like this, and soon enough i'll be posting with more efficiency.

cheers mates! 

PS: the drawing above is a portrait of my lil' brother Gustavo Ramos

Nothing leads to more nothing!

Well let's see...

 The reason for that tittle is that lately while i was waiting for my visa to be approved I have been doing nothing,  and folks nothing can only lead to more nothing, a lot of people complain about having a routine, i can only complain of a routine when the routine gets boring, if you only do the exact same things for a long period of your life they will eventually become boring, it's necessary for the human being to change, for some of us a lot is needed and for others not much but for all, and let me say this again, FOR ALL of us changes are necessary!

To exemplify, working on ships was a huuuuge part of my life, that I dedicated almost six years of it, and hell yeah it was amazing. The routine of a Crew member of "jumping" from island to island, or country to country day after day really is as interesting as most people think, but when it comes to working it is, as it has to be, a very well disciplined way of life, otherwise you'll fail miserably on many of the good aspects of being there! 

Therefore i had a Routine that was great but got old after the six years and that's why i ended up here in New Zealand now, to search for new horizons, to get me a new ROUTINE.

I finally got my work visa and on Monday the 4th of October i'm starting to work at the Antarctic center,but to cease my last weekend being a jobless person (YAY!) me and my flatmate took my roller blade and her bike for a ride to Downtown Christchurch, and watched an AWESOME movie called "The girl with the dragon tattoo" . Tthis a great crime/thriller novel that was turned into a movie, and a job very well done, is a Swedish production, and i really love watching different foreign movies like this, i pretty much grew up watching american movies, and there is nothing wrong with that, but nowadays it feels fresh to watch something with a different take on how to shoot a movie, plus as i got used to read subtitles, feels a bit nostalgic to go a to a movie theater and have to read them again cuz it's not on any of the 3 languages i speak now, hehe! 

To finish this post, i had a few ideas of things i would like to draw after watching the movie, but since i don't have more than sketches i posting this Police investigation scene that i did last year!!!

cheers mates!