Bartalos Illustration

I’m pleased to be among the inaugural contributors to the iBend Artist Series, adding color and whimsy to the thinnest mobile media player stand designed specifically for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Night scene from the Owl pack.

The iBend is made of durable, lightweight vinyl designed to hold mobile devices in the horizontal position for hands-free watching of movies and videos, most handily while traveling. It simply bends to create a stand and springs back to its flat position when not in use. It’s only 10 thousandths of an inch thick and weighs less than a gram for easy portability in wallets, purses and pockets.

Day scene from the Owl pack.

Each pack contains two iBends screen-printed in rich colors. My “Owl” pack features a pair of avian scenes by night and by day, and “Trees” offers a pair of color variations on an array of stylized vegetation.

Both will be available shortly at the online iBend store.

Night scene from the Trees pack.

The Artist Series was commissioned by friend / iBend inventor / Cuban Council partner / Kaliber 10000 mastermind Michael Buzzard, who also invited Joshua Davis of Mineola NY and Vicki Wong of Vancouver BC to embellish the new generation of product and packaging.

Day scene from the Trees pack.

The Artist packs are a terrific value at under $8 each and make practical gifts. As the company web site states, “use your iBend on a plane, bus, or train – whilst lifting weights, eating breakfast, waiting at the sushi bar, getting your teeth cleaned, at a business meeting, sitting in traffic, serving on a jury or practicing yoga.” I most often use it to prop my iPhone up as a clock on the drawing table.

The packaging is colorful too.

Stay tuned to the online iBend store for ordering information, news, and FAQs. You can also follow the expanding product line on Facebook, Flickr, Flickr groups, YouTube, and Twitter.

The California Academy of Sciences just published an activity book I illustrated for their youngest visitors. Designed by Jon Schleuning and Takayo Muroga at Pentagram‘s
San Francisco office, Slither Wiggle Waddle & More guides children and their parents to
the museum’s animals and exhibits and offers fun facts and activities along the way.

Pick up your free copy at the Early Explorers Cove, an interactive play area with hands-on exhibits and a California backyard garden display. The Cove is located right next to the Lab Junior store, one of the Academy’s three retail spaces where you’ll find my merchandise and display graphics.

Ralph Pucci is a design impresario best known for redefining the look of store mannequins through innovative collaborations with artists and designers. I’m fortunate to have created two kids’ mannequin collections for Ralph: the blocky Kool Kat Klubhouse Kidz and the more lifelike Whiz Kids set. The latter appears in his new book, SHOW, presenting 15 years of exhibitions in his New York showroom and gallery space.

Maira Kalman's mannequins on the left; my Whiz Kids figures and Pucci showroom mural on the right. Fashions by Manolo.

Since inheriting his parents’ mannequin business, Pucci branched out to deal in furniture, rugs, lighting, photography, painting, and print graphics too. His collaborators include designers Anna Sui, Jens Risom, Andrée Putman, Isabel Toledo; painters Kenny Scharf, James Brown, Ruben Toledo; and illustrators Maira Kalman, Anja Kroencke, Laura Ljungkvist and Jeffrey Fulvimari to name just a few featured in the book.

SHOW was published this month by Glitterati Inc. and previewed in Pilar Viladas’ recent
New York Times T Magazine blog post.

My illustrated box set of Animal Alphabet Note Cards published by Card Sharks is now available online.

The 26 blank notecards feature animals from A to Z — ideal for birthdays, thank yous, and everyday greetings and invitations. (They make great kids’ room decor and ABC flash cards too!)

The colorful card set and 26 envelopes come nestled in a sliding cardboard tray housed in a slipcase cover, pictured above at left. At right is the back of the cover.

Card Sharks is a fresh new greeting card company founded by friend and designer Brent Croxton. I’m excited to be part of his whimsical, high-end, earth-friendly product line whose contributors include all-star illustrators Steven Guarnaccia, John Hersey, Don Kilpatrick, Felix Sockwell and Teresa Villegas.

Congratulations to Brent on the launch of this endeavor, and a big thanks for the shout out on the CS blog!

Latin Jazz stamp photographed by Douglas Sandberg

My recent stamp designer interview is posted to Design It!, the National Postal Museum’s online Stamp Design Curriculum. I’m one of four stamp artists currently featured on the site, providing educators and students with insights into the process of designing stamps.

I recently created a cut-paper piece to benefit America SCORES Bay Area, a non-profit which helps urban kids in a unique after-school program that combines soccer and poetry. The Inspired Art Project fundraiser asks participating artists to create a piece based on poems produced by SCORES youth, and I chose Who Am I by Alan C. whose words I found imaginative and visually charged. Alan wrote this in the autumn of 2007 at age 10 at Paul Revere Elementary School in San Francisco.

Who Am I

I am a drawer
I am a turtle
I am a Mexican
I would be rich
I would be a hamburger
I would be bomb noise
I would be the smell of markers
I would be a wrestler
If I could be a word I would be hipihiperhipy
…

Awesome, Alan! My piece titled Who Am I For Alan C. will be auctioned at the SCORES annual auction in San Francisco on Saturday evening March 28.

I’m pleased to be one of three creatives that Communication Arts magazine queried for their January/February issue’s Design Trends column on newstands now. The question was: Where do you get your color inspiration? My answer:

“I get my color inspirations from collecting paper. New and surprising color combinations appear amid random piles of dyed paper, scrap paper, aged paper, printing paper, and packaging paper when my studio’s messy enough. For added excitement, I turn to Kurt Schwitters’ collages, Robert Rauschenberg’s cardboard assemblages, and Romare Bearden’s Illusionist at 4 P.M., from 1967. Pink, blue and brown never looked so good together.”

Here are the images I was referring to, which didn’t run in CommArts due to space limitations:

Two of Kurt Schwitters’ many brilliant collages and assemblages that I never tire of are Mz 601 from 1923 (left) and Merz Picture 32 A. The Cherry Picture from 1921.

Robert Rauschenberg’s 1971 cardboard pieces derive power from their monochromatic palettes. I find this baby blue assemblage titled Volon particularly irresistible.

This is Romare Bearden’s Illusionist at 4 P.M., a composition of various papers with appropriated magazine photos. I’d loved to have seen Bearden’s process of creating this adventurous palette and arranging the flat color to create the illusion of space.

I’m back in San Francisco after a few weeks away. Thanks to all those who followed my travels on the Long View blog, with a special shout out to Edel Rodriguez for featuring it on his Drawger page. The Long View Project and blog continue with the arrival of my collected material from Antarctica in a week or so.

In the meanwhile I’m opening heaps of cool holiday mail. In it were samples of the Picture Mechanics wrapping paper promo that 20 members of our consortium contributed to. My image appears in the upper right-hand corner.

The vibrant 20″ x 29″ sheets were masterminded, compiled by, and designed by the artistically irrepressible John Hersey. There are two sheets per pack, one of which you’ll want to keep to display on the wall. See all the contributors’ work at picturemechanics.com.

Happy 2009! My New Year’s card illustrates some constellations unique to the southern hemisphere: Centaurus, Cetus, Hydra, Scorpio, and Piscis Austrinus. The concept was inspired by Uranometria, a beautifully engraved star atlas of 1603 (the first to cover the entire celestial sphere), and by my recent travels south of the equator. 

I’m now at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, with no constellations to see. The only visible star is the sun which won’t set till autumn.

Daily updates continue at The Long View Project blog.

HMS Endurance photographed by Frank Hurley, February 1915.

My journey to Antarctica is under way! I’m currently in Christchurch, New Zealand, taking in the sights and waiting to get suited up for the Ice.

I’m pleased to announce that the California Academy of Sciences is hosting my dedicated Long View Project blog. That’s where most of the action throughout the next four weeks will be, though I’ll continue to post here too occasionally.

Thanks for following along.