Ducky

My sister has started taking cake adornment classes just recently. It seems like something completely random but I'm getting used to this kind of behavior. She's always doing random things so it shouldn't take me by surprise that she's embarking on this activity now. I guess she wouldn't be her if she didn't shock us with a different activity every so often.

The list is endless but some of the things she's experimented with include capoeira, design, sculpture, painting, writing poems, business, websites, piano, flute, mandolin, guitar, etc etc etc. She's really talented, just needs to find some direction sometimes. I'm sure she'll keep on looking for something that will spike her interest if cake decorating doesn't capture her attention for too long.

Anyway, her son is about to celebrate his first birthday and I get the suspicion that this is one of the main reasons why she got into the class in the first place. She has decided to make a cake and decorate it using all the knowledge she's accumulated so far. Since I can't be with my sister's family to celebrate the little guy's first year, my sis asked me to come up with some design for the cake.

It didn't take me too long to come up with something, I remember a picture that was taken when Smiles (my nephew) was younger. He had just been in the tub enjoying a bath and was really upset about having to leave the warm water. He was all tucked in a baby towel a in the shape of a duckling. Boy was he upset!! As a matter of fact I think that's one of my favorite pictures of him. No need to explain how Angry Teddy Bear ended up wearing something similar.

wallpapers

Tattoo

Patrick Nagel has been an inspiration to me ever since I saw his work for the very first time. I remember seeing his work displayed everywhere during the late 80's. It wasn't until I was much older that I found out who he was and why everybody seemed to be trying to imitate his style. He illustrated the pages of Playboy for many years and he also made an album cover for Duran Duran. Even in the Spider-Man comic book you could find a homage to him, Peter Parker had an original Nagel in his living room that MJ had given him as a gift. It would seem that every beauty salon would have his prints hanging on their walls as well. He painted and screen printed the most beautiful faces of the day back then, top models and celebrities would appear as his models.

He had a very particular style, a blend between Art Deco and the simplicity of the Japanese wood prints. Although his work seemed clean, simple and very stylized there was a lot of energy coming through the canvas and screen prints. The amount of colors used in every piece would be limited and yet he knew how to find a perfect way to bring life to his work.

My illustration didn't start out as a Nagel drawing, actually, it wasn't until I finished that I realized that it reminded me of his work. I don't think it looks very 80's though, especially with the combination of the tribal tat and the Angry Teddy Bear street design. I think you can find very similar things today all over the place and maybe a big portion of all the material out there was influenced by Nagel.

even more iPhone wallpapers

Pink

More iPhone wallpapers!

iPhone wallpaper

Five more iPhone wallpapers!!

iPhone, Apple, Macs

Over the past few days I've been designing wallpapers for my iPhone. I really don't know why it hadn't ocurred to me before. So I went through some of my pictures I have stored so far on my hard drive (5,689 to be precise) and selected a few that would be interesting enough to make into a wallpaper. Most of these pictures are from 2008 although there are a few that are from my trip to Canada over a year ago. I have 3 years worth of pictures I still have to backup onto my hard-drive so I'm sure I'll come up with more iPhone wallpapers. Help yourselves to them, they free!! hehehe.

Tomorrow Apple will be announcing new stuff about the iPhone and possibly a few thing or two about the Macs. It seems very probable that they will be mentioning something about the new operating system. Snow Leopard maybe?

Day 12

For the past few days there hasn't been much going on. I've been heading home after work, reading a book and working on a rug. Nothing very exciting really. Just chilling. I've calculated that it'll take about 500 hours to finish the rug. I've had the kit laying under my bed for 3 1/2 years, it's about time I finish this project. I'll post the picture once it's completed. Estimated date: ??/??/20??

Day 11

June 2. 10 am. These flowers have been living in my room for 3 weeks now. It's amazing how long they have lasted. When I started thinking about this project, these flowers were one of the first things I took a picture of. If you look back, you'll be able to see them in a better condition. Could it be that the winter cold preserves them a bit longer?

Day 10

June 1. 1 pm. Decided to go to the Wairarapa region, just outside of Wellington and over the Rimutaka range. First stop was having lunch at a vineyard, Coney was the name of the place. For lunch I had a really nice lamb shank and the rest of the guys had cajun fish, fetuccini carbonara and some kind of chicken. I think we were all quite happy with our meals. After some wine tasting (which I skipped of course) we headed towards the Pinnacles. A rocky formation that has been filmed in two of Peter Jackson's movies. The most known one would be the Return of the King where Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas walk through the Valley of the Dead. From here, we headed towards Cape Palliser, which I think is the southern most tip of the North Island. On the way you can find seals lying almost on the road. There weren't that many since it's not that time of the year yet, but once we get into the thick of winter, the place will be full of seals. Once we spent some minutes with the seals, we headed to the lighthouse and took some quick snapshots. Then we drove toward Lake Ferry where I was promising the gang that we would find one of the best culinary experiences I've had in New Zealand. I think almost everybody who has gone to Lake Ferry has had the Fisherman's Plaetter. A huge assortment of delicacies from the sea served to you freshly in a nice old fashioned pub! Oh boy, were we in for a surprise.... the pub was transformed into a hotel and they don't serve the Fisherman's platter anymore. We had to conform to a meal in Martinborough. Meh.

Day 9

May 31. Around mid-day. View from my bedroom. The day was supposed to be rainy and cloudy but turned out to be much better than expected. A bit cold though. In the background you can see Mt Victoria.

Day 8

May 29. After dark. Went out for some hot chocolate and a piece of cheesecake. The place to go is Espressoholic. You can always find food when most of the places in town have closed their kitchens. The atmosphere is quite relaxed and you get a real eclectic mixture of people coming in to the place. The price for a bowl of hot choc is fantastic, but apart from the food and people, what I really dig are the table tops. Every table has a different design and most of them have illustrations by a guy who signs under the name of Morse. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find anything about him on the net. The image above is just one of his sexy female creations... I know that they can be considered furries but they still have a very nice trace. If you happen to be in the area, check out the art!

UPDATE: I believe the name is Simon Morse, an illustrator from New Zealand.

Day 7

May 28. Sometime after 11 pm. The posse and I hung out at Sandwiches. Cool place to listen to some jazz. They have good music on the weekends as well and it's always worth checking it out for dancing. On the way back home we grabbed some burguers.

Day 6

May 27. 8:00 pm. Went to the movies and guess what I watched? After that, we were able to score some ice cream from Kaffee Eis, the best place to get ice cream in Wellington.

365 photos

This is nothing new really, it's been done many times before. You can find numerous websites and blogs that have a "one photo a day" gallery. So why am I doing it? Well, it all comes down to the simplicity of having a camera within the iPhone. I don't have to carry my professional camera all the time and yet I can capture the things that are happening around me. It's a bit awkward sometimes to hold a camera in front of somebody but with people being so used to cell phones with cameras, I think they feel more at ease. They're not thinking if they're photogenic or not, they accept that it's just a quick snap. Some of the pictures though, will be taken with a Canon 400 D as well. Oh, and I've been wanting to have a visual diary for some time now.

Anyway, I'll try my best to keep this thing going on a tight schedule. I don't know if I can find interesting images every day. We'll just have to see what comes up. In the meantime, I have here a few head-start pictures. The starting date is the 19th of may, 2008.

Day 1 - May 19, 2008. This image was taken at the Wellington Airport. The logo is quite clever for you can see how they use the Tui's (a New Zealand native bird) tuft to simulate that it's wearing jewellery. Taken around 11 am.

Day 2. May 20, 2008. 7 am. View from my window. Spectacular!!

Day 3: May 24. 2:24 pm. Hanging out with the posse. It was a really slow day, it was cloudy and cold, just a regular Wellington winter day. We hung around town window shopping and having hot chocolates.

Day 4: May 25, 2008. 5:01 pm. Heading out to Te Aro Videoshop to get The Notorious Bettie Page video and The Black Dahlia. Good day to keep inside really. It's still gray and gloomy. Yet another example of fine art that abounds in the streets of Wellington, hahahaha.

Day 5: May 26, 2008. 8:51 am. Heading to work. Pedestrian sign. Similar to those posted sometime before.

Wallpaper

Gypsy

In the Mask

I've been having so much fun with these guys that I've decided to make 3 series instead of one. My original idea was to make a series in which ATB would be wearing some of the most iconic masks that were present during my childhood. After sitting down and making a list of all the possibilities, I realized I'd have to make 3 series. From what I have posted already, you can probably guess that one of them will be a Superhero series and the other one will be a "Luchadores" series. The last one will be a surprise.

El Santo

This silver mask is a classic within the Mexican wrestling aficionados. "El Santo" is considered to be one of the best "luchadores" of all times.